


objects in mirror are closer than they appear

by uneventfulhouses



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Halloween, M/M, dub con but super light, lovers to...lovers, you know when you love someone so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27313090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uneventfulhouses/pseuds/uneventfulhouses
Summary: Inside the bathroom, Ryan’s standing in front of the mirror, the water on, but his hands are by his side. Shane regards him curiously, but Ryan ignores him, keeps his eyes on himself.Shane walks over to one of the urinals and starts in on his belt, and when he looks up, he looks into the mirror, and Ryan’s already gone and stepped away.Ryan’s reflection doesn’t follow him. Shane feels a shock catapult and slam into his solar plexus.Shane stares, his fingers stilled on the buckle of his belt as Ryan’s reflection stares back at him. The door to the bathroom closes, and the image in the mirror stutters, before it moves quickly, like a 4x scrub on a video.Shane blinks at his own reflection in the mirror, quickly and frantic, waving his arms, forward stepping and back. Nothing out of the ordinary happens.or; sometimes things aren't always as they seem.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 64
Kudos: 207
Collections: Skeptic Believer Book Club Hallowe'en Fic Exchange 2020





	objects in mirror are closer than they appear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cleopatraslibrary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleopatraslibrary/gifts).



> HELLO!!! it's been a while. i bring you some halloween shenanigans, gifted to the loveliest lexi for the skeptic believer halloween exchange. 
> 
> this fic wouldn't have become what it is, without the help from [levy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fraudgara/pseuds/Fraudgara/), [henley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toadreadytoparty/pseuds/toadreadytoparty), and [spence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeavyMetalMothman/pseuds/HeavyMetalMothman). i appreciate yall so much for the brainstorm parties and just general love. this was a _journey_. we were up til 4:30 in the morning making it all come together, and i'm glad it's out in the world. 
> 
> title comes from the text on the side mirror in my car.
> 
> honorable mentions to local natives and the license to chill playlist on spotify. 
> 
> beta'ed by levy, but all mistakes are my own.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 31

It’s nearing the end of the day, and Shane’s offered to stack their Staples haul into the tiny supply closet. He thinks about dinner, if Ryan might like to come over and hang out; maybe queue up a few films and a couple bowls of popcorn. He’s nearly about to turn around and find Ryan across the room with his eyes, but it seems Ryan finds him first. Pressed along his back, Ryan snakes an arm around Shane’s waist, sticking his hand underneath the cotton of his button up, laying his fingers gently against Shane’s stomach. 

“Hey,” Shane says with a grin. “Was just thinking about you.”

Ryan hums. “Good things or bad things?”

Shane lowers his arm from the shelf. “Frankly, it’s none of your business.”

It makes Ryan laugh, a soft huff of breath Shane can feel through his shirt. “I’m making it my business.”

Shane turns around and Ryan takes his hand and loops a finger through the belt loop of Shane’s jeans, pressing their hips close. It seems like he catches Shane’s gaze through his eyelashes, and Ryan openly looking at him like that will never not be so arresting. Up on the tips of his toes, Ryan asks for a kiss, and Shane bends forward to meet him—

And instead, gets a wadded up paper ball to the side of his face.

“Keep it professional,” Steven calls from across the room.

“It’s five o’ clock; go home,” Ryan calls before yanking Shane down, and kissing him anyway.

Shane can hear their coworkers laughing, and Shane doesn’t fight against the warmth that spills through his body, a heady rush that makes Shane’s stomach flip.

“There’s a—uh, there’s a carnival in town tonight. Come with me.” 

“It’s Halloween. You don’t want to hand out candy and make out?” Shane frowns.

Ryan grins. “I’ll make it up to you,” he says, tugging on the belt-loop, his voice coaxing like he’s trying to get Shane to agree; even though Shane knows that because Ryan wants to, that’s what they’re going to do.

“Yeah, okay,” Shane says easily, and Ryan’s smile widens.

::

It seems like a lot of work for a carnival to be in town for one night when there’s so much to do for the setup. It makes him nostalgic for Chicago street fairs: walking down the streets lined with food trucks and tents with stuff to sell. Shane has always been fascinated by the gathering of people, how the fair seemed to go on forever. He feels that here, holding Ryan’s hand as they walk through crowds and crowds of bodies, elbows bumping as they pass screaming children.

“First things first,” Ryan says, tugging him along towards a food cart with an enormous sign proclaiming the sale of elephant ears. Shane grins at Ryan as they make their way to the line.

“I should win you something,” Shane says, tearing into his pastry after they’ve received their orders. Ryan laughs, powdered sugar smeared on the corners of his mouth. They stand near the fence, away from the overcrowded tables.

“Do you have enough hand-eye coordination for something like that?” he asks, eyebrow arched. Shane makes a face and ducks down and into Ryan’s space, pressing a wet kiss on the corner of his lips. “That’s not your hand.”

“You want my hand?” Shane asks, dipping into his lower register. Ryan’s laugh turns flirtatious, giggles that curl around Shane’s spine.

“Later, you freak,” he admonishes, but his wide, sharp grin tells Shane if he pushes hard enough, there’s a bush they could woo-hoo in.

They finish their food instead, meandering towards the section of the carnival where all the games are set up, stall after stall featuring loud, warped music, shooting simulations and whack-a-mole. They sidle up to a ball toss station with the least amount of people.

“All right, big guy,” Ryan says, standing off to the side with his arms crossed over his chest. The attendant hands over a few lightweight plastic balls, and Shane wiggles his eyebrows at Ryan before straightening his back, standing at his full height. He tosses the balls and makes two out of three shots.

“Look at you,” Ryan praises. “Maybe I will see you run D on the court one of these days.”

“Oh, you’ll see me run D alright,” Shane says, leering at Ryan.

Ryan’s still cackling as the attendant hands him the stuffed, half-foot tall giraffe with vampire teeth and a cape. 

“Look, it’s you,” Ryan says affectionately, shoving the toy into Shane’s face, making exaggerated kissing noises. 

::

The sun has gone down; Shane flips his shades up into his hair, blinking as he takes in his re-colorized surroundings. There are tinges of deep golds and tangerine that over-saturate the shadows on Ryan’s cheeks, laying vibrance to the tone of Ryan’s skin. Ryan’s fingers are between the spaces of his own, holding loosely, as they wait in line for the funhouse. Ryan scrolls through his phone, and Shane watches him for a moment, the way he blinks, the micro-expressions that cross the features of his face as he takes in whatever information is offered on the screen. 

In this moment, Shane realizes this is what he wants, spending substantial amounts of time with Ryan, waiting in line, enjoying the quiet of his company so much that he doesn’t mind the wait at all.

He knows that, though. He’s known it for a while—since before that night at the bar—that he was going to spend an exponentiated amount of time with Ryan Bergara; be it as professional dumbasses, or best friends, or the murky waters of this newly cultivated step in their relationship. Shane is brutally aware that Ryan is always going to be a part of his life. 

It wasn’t lost on Shane that Ryan felt positively towards him, that Ryan wanted something out of this, too; Shane doesn’t think he _has_ to ask, but he knows they’ll have to have the conversation. The _DTR_. The _What Are We_? The _Do you want to keep doing this for the foreseeable future, also, will it bother you if I call you baby or babe on a regular basis_? 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t really know what _it_ is. Sometimes it’s easier to do something without explicitly saying what it is. It could break if they give it too much weight. He doesn’t want to want something so badly and have it taken anyway before he has the chance to really enjoy it.

Ryan glances up at him, like he has some sensor that tells him Shane’s thinking about them.

“Hey,” Ryan says, pocketing his phone. 

“Hey.” Shane clears his throat.

“I have a question.” Ryan cocks his head to the side, shifting his weight; his fingers keep their hold around Shane’s. “What do you—what are we doing?” 

Shane’s brow furrows. “Like, right now? Or is this—like, generally?” 

Ryan fidgets with the rope that keeps the queue secured. “Like with us.” 

“Hey, come on you two,” the attendant calls, a pretty woman with bubblegum pink hair and green lipstick. Shane looks over and finds the few people ahead of them have already gone. He steps forward, pulling Ryan along. 

“Let’s pin that to the board and swing back around, okay?” Shane says. “You’ll still come over right?” 

Ryan doesn’t quite answer, only gives a noncommittal noise as a response, but he follows Shane up the steps of the fun house. Shane knows he should have answered correctly—it’s just not the right time.

He isn’t ready yet.

::

It’s less elaborate than the mazes at Knotts, or Halloween Horror Nights, but the jump scares get Ryan, pushing back into Shane more than he ever has. Shane doesn’t know what Ryan expects if something were to happen to them for real—he can’t fight, despite having an advantage on limbs.

As it happens, Ryan’s tucked into Shane’s side, and Shane wraps an arm around his shoulders.

Shane doesn’t find many things creepy, but the room of mirrors is weirdly unsettling. There’s nothing different about it, nothing that seems out of place. Everything seems old and worn, a setting he’d find in a low-budget film. Ryan doesn’t seem bothered here, comfortable as they have their fun with the warped mirrors, wiggling their bodies and laughing at the weird shapes the mirrors make of them.

The room seems to go on forever.

Fog spills and floods around them, nearly opaque. The music turns discordant, grating in his ears as it becomes louder, louder, louder; Shane winces—fighting the urge to cover his ears with his hands to keep the noise out. He blinks, irritated from the influx of fog, and feels desperately like he’d rather turn around and leave.

His breath catches in the back of his throat, and there’s a cough that tickles but never quite comes, like an incomplete sneeze. When he steps forward and reaches for Ryan, his hand grasps empty space, air rushing through the spaces between his fingers.

A headache blooms from the back of his head, crawling over his scalp and digging in its talons—he tries looking around, and he still can’t see anything further than a foot in front of him.

“Ryan?” he calls, but even then, the music, dissonant and harsh, drowns out the sound of his voice. Shane keeps walking, and walking—slamming into his own goddamn reflection. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, righting himself as he stumbles, turning and finding his way through the mirrors, finding the fog has lessened to a degree, enough that he can see better.

“Ry?” He walks around, passing reflection after reflection. After a careful step and then another, Shane finds Ryan standing in the middle of the room, looking down at his hands.

Shane smacks his hands down onto Ryan’s hands playfully, and Ryan looks up at him, mouth downturned into a frown, eyes slightly unfocused. He’s so handsome in the shadowed light, eyes glinting—almost like he’s stoned. Ryan blinks a few times, shaking his head.

“You okay?” Shane asks, setting a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan turns his head to look down where Shane’s gently set his palm. Something hot and _wrong_ twists in Shane’s stomach.

“I’m starving,” Ryan says, shrugging his shoulder. Shane takes the hint and retracts his hand, stuffing it into his pocket. “We should go.”

As they exit the funhouse, Shane takes one of Ryan’s hands in his, stepping onto the back deck and descending the stairs. Ryan pulls his hand out of Shane’s grasp. Shane tries not to read into it.

“Do you still want to come over?” Shane tries, following Ryan out of the carnival. It isn’t as late as he’d thought it’d be as they leave. It’s nearing nine, and they didn’t even touch the Ferris Wheel, which seems sacrilegious considering how much Ryan loves them.

“No thanks.”

Shane notices Ryan’s stuffed animal toy is missing. “Where’s your giraffe?”

“Guess, I lost it,” Ryan says flatly.

Shane tries not to read into that, too.

He clears his throat as they find Ryan’s car, and without saying anything, Ryan gets in and closes the door shut. He doesn’t slam it, but it still shakes Shane like he had. He sighs, swinging the passenger door open and climbing in. Ryan starts the car and it takes him a couple times before he shifts the car into reverse; he goes too far and sets it in drive, then neutral.

“Are you okay?”

Instead of saying anything, Ryan turns up the music, hands on ten and two, instead of one on six and the other in Shane’s.

It’s not often that Shane feels put out, but whatever going on inside of Ryan’s mind makes Shane feel squeamish in the passenger seat; he can see it in the rigid way Ryan sits, the sheer focus he extends to driving—not abnormal in most cases, but hot off what should have been a good time, the air should carry a different current of electricity than this fuzzy static that makes it difficult for Shane to break through . It can’t be that postponing a conversation would really upset Ryan this much. When they’d gone inside the funhouse, Ryan was fine, laughing and reacting to the scare actors, pushing himself into Shane’s space like Shane would keep him safe.

It’s like someone had taken the funhouse and turned it upside down, shaken them about, and now they’ve lost a piece of themselves.

The drive to Shane’s apartment building feels like it happens in slow motion. They’re going to have to talk about what Ryan wanted to talk about, Shane will apologize and agree with whatever Ryan wants because that’s the easiest way to point B. Shane would rather not talk about it at all, and just walk this line of ambiguity. Shane likes going into things because they feel right, rather than slapping a label on it, and marketing it to everyone as some big, huge thing.

Except that’s one of those rare things that make them different from one another; Ryan would want that. The whole Instagram announcement of it all, the Sunday night dinner together with parents saying, “This is my Boyfriend™”. Shane just wants the text message thread of it all. The Sunday morning waking up to each other, and letting it be.

Ryan slides into an empty parking spot at the front of Shane’s building, but he doesn’t park, just idles.

“Do you want to come up?” Shane asks again, though this time softly, quietly, hoping Ryan will have changed his mind between the carnival and here.

“No,” Ryan says, just as gently. Shane refrains from pouting, and when he leans over the center console, Ryan blinks at him. “What are you doing?”

“I—” Shane pulls back. “Did I do something to upset you this much?”

“Nope.” Ryan shakes his head.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not obligated to kiss you, Shane,” Ryan says, so matter of fact it stuns Shane. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Shane’s brow furrows, and there’s a pang in his chest. “Okay,” he sighs. He opens the door and climbs out, and the door is barely shut behind him before Ryan’s pulling away and merging onto the street.

For the rest of the night, Shane feels unsettled and restless, wondering what happened that would make Ryan so standoffish. It can’t be the conversation. It seems so minute, so _silly_ for Ryan to have worked himself up this much just because Shane said _Later_.

Shane tosses his keys and cell onto the table by the door, kicking off his shoes after he closes the front door. Rather than work himself up, he takes a shower and feeds Obi, and then sits himself on the couch. He flips through the channels until he picks a horror marathon to finish out the rest of the Halloween weekend.

The last thing he remembers is sending a text message that reads, _Sorry for whatever it is I did_ , before falling asleep.

::

In the morning, he wakes up still on the couch. It’s an hour before his alarm is due to ring, so Shane gets up and slips underneath the blankets of his bed.

When he checks his phone, there isn’t a response to his message from the night before, only a label that shows Ryan read it at nearly three in the morning. Not odd for Ryan to be up at peculiar times of the night, but Shane wonders if he’s been sleeping better since they’ve been sleeping together so much.

He stares at the wall for a while, before pushing himself to get up and get ready for the morning.

Somewhere around eight-thirty, he’s finishing the last of his coffee, setting his mug into the sink. He waits, rather impatiently, for Ryan to pick him up, like he’s done every day since that night at the bar. Time skips on, but Ryan never gives him a text that he’s downstairs.

At a quarter till, he calls Ryan.

“Hello?” Ryan answers, sounding fairly normal from what Shane can gauge. He doesn’t hear any telltale car noise.

“Are you running late?” he asks, leaning against the counter, shoving a hand into his pocket. Obi comes in and circles him, rubs himself against Shane’s ankle.

“What? I’m sitting at my desk,” Ryan answers. The gentle sound of a keyboard makes itself known, coarse in Shane’s ears. His jaw clenches. “We’ve been wondering if _you_ were running late.”

“I was waiting for you to come pick me up,” Shane says, clearing his throat.

“I didn’t say I was going to,” Ryan tells him, in a tone that’s so dismissive it makes Shane bristle, riddled with the tension he’d been keeping at bay since the night before.

“Ryan, what’s wrong with you?” Shane finally asks, exasperated. “You—”

“Nothing,” Ryan interrupts. The call ends with a taunting _boop boop boop._

Shane stares at his phone in disbelief, shaking his head as he draws up the app to call for a ride. He’s a half an hour late by the time he makes it into the office.

Ryan _is_ sitting at his desk, clicking around, and Shane’s not _much_ for anger, but he does feel heat flood his face when he sees Ryan turn around and look at him as he walks to his desk.

“Seriously,” Shane asks. “What did I do?”

“I said nothing,” Ryan answers without fully addressing him.

“Okay, well, you’re acting like I did something, and—” Shane cuts himself off with a frustrated sigh. “We can still talk about what—the thing you wanted to talk about.”

“Oh, there’s no need,” Ryan says, finally turning to regard Shane, both hands on his knees as he swivels in his chair. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“You don’t…want to talk?” Shane says carefully.

“No, I don’t want to sleep with you anymore,” Ryan says with such an ease, Shane’s almost certain they aren’t talking about the same thing, but Ryan’s mouth curves slowly into a sympathetic quirk of a smile.

“I—okay, so is this—are you—are _we_ not going to continue—” Shane waves his hand. He’s painfully aware, has been, of Katie and Steven sitting just opposite them.

“No, I don’t think so,” Ryan says.

Shane’s eyebrows raise so high he’s sure they’ve gotten lost in his bangs. “So, I didn’t do anything wrong, but suddenly we’re not seeing each other anymore? Care to explain?”

“Not really,” Ryan says. He reaches out and pats Shane on the shoulder. “It wasn’t going to work out anyway when you’ve made it pretty clear all you want to do is fuck me instead of talk about things.”

Shane swallows the acid in his throat, and when he looks up, Katie catches his eyes; sympathy swirls around in them, and—

“Whoa, whoa—” Steven stands up from his desk across from Ryan, looking directly at him. “Ryan—” 

“Steven, it’s fine,” Shane says, standing up, too, but he gathers his bag, his phone, his jacket, pain in his chest when he looks at Ryan, and sees an emptiness that never used to be there. 

It had to be something that Shane did, something that made Ryan think twice about their arrangement and decide to call it off. And while Shane always thought he was borrowing seconds from a timer, he never thought it would be this frank, blunt, matter-of-fact, that Ryan would let him down so harshly in the middle of a workday, the sunlight shining brilliantly through the cracks in the blinds. 

Shane didn’t think it would be forever—he doesn’t like to think in permanence—and yet, to be faced with this particular reality makes his stomach hurt, and his joints ache, and he feels so turned upside down he doesn’t know which way is up. 

After a beat, and then another, Shane says quietly, “I’ll just work from home.” 

“Shane—” It’s Katie calling him, and when he looks back at her, Shane shrugs, because it’s all he can do.

::

When he gets home, he drops his stuff on the couch, changes into his running clothes and takes off. 

He takes his usual path, runs so fast it aches in his calves, his thighs, his chest as he gasps for air. He runs and runs and runs, hoping that it’ll break the world open wide and he can tuck himself into the earth’s core and never again exist so painfully. 

Shane’s been in love before, from what he understands, at least; heartbreak never felt like this, though, ruining him like a moldy wall, spreading all throughout his limbs until he feels poisoned, contaminated. He wheezes his breath as he slows, and the sun hangs in the sky like a taunt; the world inside him is flooded with stormy rainfall. There’s water in his lungs. 

He just wonders what it was. He just wants to know what it was that in the bliss of the last handful of weeks, something soured Ryan so greatly, that Shane gave him the impression that whatever they were doing wasn’t going to work out. There had to be something Shane said, something he did; it couldn’t just end like this. 

How did it go from such sweetness—something Shane was never really into in the first place—to completely frozen over? 

One second, he’s standing in a closet, with Ryan’s hand on his belly, his body pressing into the curves of Shane’s back, and the next it’s a dismissive pat on the shoulder. 

What about Shane flipped the switch and turned Ryan off so quickly? 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 13

There’s a sparkle in Ryan’s eyes as he looks up at Shane, standing on the curb, waiting for their ride. There’s a flush on Ryan’s cheeks, brilliant and rich. Shane’s fingers tingle with the compulsion to touch it, to feel the heat underneath Ryan’s skin. When Ryan blinks, it’s slow, a showcase of his eyelashes, dark and thick, sweeping upwards to reveal glittering irises, the depth of his pupils blown wide. Ryan takes a half step closer, stumbling, reaching out to steady himself with his hands on Shane’s arms, clasping just above his elbows. 

“Oh, shit,” Ryan mumbles, just as Shane catches his hands on Ryan’s hips, holding him up, desperately wanting to draw him close, but keeping him still. 

“Watch it,” Shane huffs, laughter in his breath. 

“I want to tell you a secret,” Ryan says, hiccupping. “Can I tell you a secret?” His eyes are so big, and his smile is even bigger, and Shane desperately wants to know what’s running through his mind. Shane nods, and Ryan moves into his space, crushing every inch of distance into dust. Their bodies collide, and Ryan’s hands smooth up Shane’s arms, curling them around Shane’s neck. Shane leans in just as Ryan moves up to stand on the tips of his toes; his cheek scrapes against Shane’s, and the brush of their beards crackles in Shane’s ears. He closes his eyes, feels Ryan’s breath hot on the corner of his jaw. 

“I want you to come home with me,” Ryan whispers. “Come home with me and sleep in my bed.” 

Shane sucks in a sharp breath, gripping Ryan’s hips and keeping him close. He pulls back, and looks down at Ryan, at the hope that swirls in his eyes. “Yeah? That what you want?” 

“Take off all my clothes,” Ryan says, just as his fingers comb through the hair at the back of Shane’s head. “Touch me. Do you wanna touch me, Shane?” 

He wants to, God, he wants to. It’s been on the forefront of his mind all night. Ever since—underneath the cover of the tabletop—Ryan made his move by putting a hand on Shane’s thigh, high up enough that there wasn’t any room for asking questions.

“Wanna do a lot more than touch you,” Shane admits. “You want that, too?” 

“Do I gotta spell it out for you? Let me ride your dick, man,” Ryan says, grinning. Shane’s stomach swoops something fierce, sharp and piercing through him with demanding arousal. 

Shane huffs a surprised laugh, nodding. “Okay,” he agrees, and Ryan cocks his head to the side. 

“You’d make it good for me, wouldn’t you?” Ryan pushes his hips forward, and Shane shivers.

“Yeah,” Shane promises. “I’ll always make it good for you, Ryan.” 

::

Shane doesn't get to touch Ryan, not in the explicit way; their drunk limbs left them less than coordinated for anything more than fervent groping and grinding.

But Ryan does kiss him. He kisses Shane with everything in him, and Shane can feel the way the whole world flips upside down, and the momentum propels them into each other recklessly. They kiss hard and sloppy, wet and messy, and Shane half wonders if there's a way for them to get closer. He thinks there has to be, there’s got to be some way where his body and Ryan’s body can coexist in the exact same place, matter and atoms be damned. 

Underneath him, Ryan spreads his legs, and Shane settles in between them, and it feels like they’re close; it feels like they're almost there. The friction of their jeans, the creak of the mattress, their heavy breathing; Shane rocks into Ryan, and Ryan breaks the kiss to spill a breathless moan of his name, soft and sweet. Shane hides his face in Ryan’s neck as Ryan keeps him close. 

::

When Shane wakes up in the morning, half on top of Ryan, still in his clothes from last night.

Quietly, cause Ryan’s still asleep, he moves to get off the bed, but even then, a hand reaches out and grabs him around the wrist, and pulls him back in. 

“Don’t go,” Ryan whispers. Shane looks at him, the soft smile that curls up, sleepy and small. Shane’s heart shatters into a million pieces and is rebuilt by the decadence of that glowing smile.

“Just to shower,” Shane says. “My dick is stuck to my pants.” 

Ryan laughs. “Do you remember what happened?” 

“Yeah. You?”

Ryan opens his eyes. “Yeah.” 

“Okay.”

“Can I shower with you?” he asks, blinking slowly, that coquettish sweep of eyelashes dragging out the drunk memory of looking down at Ryan, of secrets. 

Shane takes a moment, and then a breath before he responds. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” 

::

The shower is—a shower. They kiss underneath the spray of the water and there’s a lot of touching; now that Shane is allowed, he doesn’t think he’ll have the strength to give it up. 

Wrapped in towels and standing in front of the sink, Shane looks at them through the mirror. He’s seen their reflections together countless times; he shares so much space with Ryan it makes sense they’d come together here, too. 

Shane likes the comparisons he can see. The contrast of their skin tones, their height. The definition of Ryan’s chest and shoulders and arms. His own barely-there definition. The way the light catches on the beads of water on Ryan’s skin. High up on the right side of Ryan’s hip, there’s a scar. Small and shiny.

“Take a picture, dude,” Ryan says, catching his eyes and spitting toothpaste in the sink. Shane laughs.

“I’m just looking,” Shane says, reaching out to tug Ryan into him, right into his side. Ryan turns his face, and presses a quick kiss to Shane’s chest, right where his pectoral meets the arch of his underarm. It’s like sugar, sweet and sticky, breath catching at the back of this throat. 

“We look good together like this,” Ryan whispers, looking at Shane through the mirror, eyes bright and happy, and Shane can’t believe he’s the one that put all that light there. 

“Think so?” 

“Yeah,” Ryan says, and he looks up at Shane. Shane gives him a kiss, and it’s so startling how easy it is to give in to the craving; to take what’s given. 

Ryan keeps Shane inside all Sunday morning, under the covers of a throw blanket. They binge through a few movies, unapologetically wrapped up in each other.

There isn’t a conversation where they explicitly say they’re doing something they weren’t before, but when Shane goes home that night, Ryan spends a lot of time kissing him in the doorway, trying to coax him to stay the night again. Eventually, Ryan concedes and lets him leave with, “I’ll pick you up on my way in.” 

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1

At home, he doesn’t bother working; Shane’s good at compartmentalizing most things, but this is harder to bear. He feels pathetic about it, as his joints protest moving. He showers off the sweat and his stomach growls, and he figures he should do something about it, but when he gets out of the bathroom, he towels himself off, feeds Obi, and then slips into bed, before the sun has even begun to go down. 

He sleeps and sleeps, and when he wakes, the feelings are still there; they crawl up and arrest him, leaving him staring at the ceiling, missing sharpened smiles, the gentle ease of laughter, how gravity insisted they collide. With or without their permission, they were supposed to slam into each other that hard.

SEPTEMBER

It’s safe to say the foray into their relationship is easier than Shane would have thought it would be. There isn’t a question of how Ryan feels, because Ryan’s forthcoming with it, always, never hesitating to tell Shane how much he likes this, them, in a romantic capacity that surpasses the closeness of their already tangled friendship. 

The night at the bar—maybe not the most romantic way to fall into each other, but Shane knows there was an urgency there. A little bit of liquid courage to guide them into each other. 

Most mornings now begin with a flash of Ryan’s sleepy eyes, his sleep-warm flesh, half naked underneath the blankets. Nights end with hands and arms and legs tangled together, pressing as closely as they possibly can, making a mess of each other. 

He’s imagined before what Ryan would look like in the middle of being touched, but the actuality of it—the reality, the crystal clear, 1080P vision of Ryan with his head thrown back and his neck flushed and bared—is nothing Shane’s mind could have created. 

Neither is the _you always make me feel so good_ whispered into the curve of Shane’s shoulder, breathless and sweet, sinking inside of Shane to force away the worries with unparalleled heat. 

Shane isn't much of an active person; he can spend days in bed without blinking an eye, reading a novel or bingeing a show. As it happens, these new weekends spent with Ryan find him lying in bed, midafternoon, late morning, early evening. It’s like they can’t stop.

In Shane’s mind, it was always a slow descent, like a winding staircase. But this—no, they hadn’t hit a red light yet, or a yellow light they couldn’t speed through. It was green lights from the moment they woke, yielding a few stop signs for food before falling into each other again.

It would help if Ryan wasn’t so addictive. If Ryan didn’t make it so easy to want him, when it seemed like all Ryan wanted was Shane, too; was to touch and feel, so unapologetic in their desire.

Shane fancies himself a scholar, and if Ryan was a book, he’d have read him through a million times by now, catching details he missed before. He can’t have missed the length of his eyelashes or the pink of his lips; the soft way he says Shane’s name when he’s just woken up, blinking his eyes open and focusing them on Shane. 

It’s a Friday night, somewhere in the early beginnings of October. The leaves outside have changed, although the weather gives them no reprieve, still harsh and hot when they step outside for fresh air, holding hands in the elevator.

Ryan’s wearing his shirt.

Shane really likes that Ryan’s wearing his shirt.

“Stop staring at me, you creep,” Ryan teases, eyes up on the floor numbers as they change. Shane grins.

“I can’t help it.”

Ryan turns his head and looks at him, eyes tired at the edges because they _were_ up all night, but he couldn’t help that either. “Figure it out.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Shane wonders aloud, tugging their clasped hands and pulling Ryan close, just to hear him wheeze that dumb laugh he’ll never get tired of. Ryan rises as tall as he can, and Shane leans forward to meet him, and he’ll never tire of this either; the spark that electrifies him every time he kisses Ryan, the plush red of his mouth, soft and warm, always so inviting.

Shane’s hands find their way to Ryan’s hips, just as the bell rings their arrival to the ground floor and the doors slide open.

“You look good in my clothes,” Shane says, and Ryan shakes his head.

“Look better out of them, hmm?” Ryan teases, and walks away, and Shane takes a deep breath and follows.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2

The next morning isn’t easier by any means, but Shane manages. He’s never been so used to feeling so emotionally frail, caught with frayed edges, torn, irreparable seams. He’s being dramatic, but that’s how it feels, like he’s been rubbed raw, knees against pavement, grit in his blood.

In the office, it’s early enough that the only other person working is Katie. At nine, Steven walks in and gives a gentle pat to Shane’s shoulder.

It’s mostly quiet, the humdrum of the office at work, and Shane’s acutely aware his desk mate is absent. No one mentions it, though, and Shane can live with it, even though he’s wondering, half-worried. He checks his phone out of impulse, but his screen is clear of notifications.

There’s a clambering noise at the door, and Shane swivels in his chair to look, gripping the armrest with a tense hand. Ryan tumbles in, catching himself on the shelf, cackling with laughter. When their gazes meet and Shane’s locked into Ryan’s eyes, Shane knows he’s still drunk from whatever it was that he’d done the night before.

But it must have been some level of a very good night for him. Shane sees the dotted hickeys on Ryan’s neck and jealousy spikes, riotous and venomous. Shane looks away, turning back to his computer and setting his hands on the keyboard to continue typing, but his train of thought is so completely off the rails.

“Ryan?” It’s Katie’s voice, and she sounds concerned.

“Sup?” Ryan says, throwing himself into his seat. Shane thinks he’s wearing the same thing he was the day before, but he’s not completely sure.

“Why don’t you go home and take the day,” she says calmly. “I think the rest of us can take missing you for a day.”

Steven makes a disapproving noise. “It’s not like he’s done anything since—”

“Steven,” Katie admonishes.

“Since what, Steven?” Ryan says, a sharp tint to the tone of his voice. “Since _what_?” he repeats, leaning over the desk to look at Steven, a braced hand on the tabletop, when he doesn’t immediately answer.

“You know what,” Steven says, his voice just as worked up. Shane finally looks between the three of them; he squares his shoulders and sighs.

“I’ll take him home,” he offers.

“Absolutely not,” Katie says. “I’m calling a Lyft.”

“I’m a grown ass man, I don’t need you doing anything for me,” Ryan spits. “And I don’t fucking want to go.”

“You’re going,” Katie says with finality. “I don’t care if I have to drag you out of here myself—”

“Katie, I’ll just take him,” Shane says, stronger this time. There’s fire in her eyes when she looks at him, uncertainty swirling in her irises.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ryan says petulantly, slumping in his chair. Shane ignores him.

“I’ll come back, it won’t be long. I’ll just get him to bed.”

“You _don’t_ have to do this,” she says.

“Shane just wants to help me because he wants to lay _in_ the bed with me. He loves me, you know,” Ryan says, leaning back in his chair. All of the air feels like it’s been vacuumed right from Shane’s lungs, forced out of him by a punch through his solar plexus.

“ _Ryan_ ,” Shane admonishes, too hurt to do anything but stare at the marks on his neck, marks that someone else left on him when Shane still has the taste of Ryan’s name in his mouth.

“What?” Ryan says. “You’re too chickenshit to say so, but you do.”

Shane clenches his jaw. “I _don’t_.”

“Don’t lie to yourself. Or to me. I don’t like it.” Ryan stands up and begins walking towards the door. “Take me home, big guy. Might let you hit it if you’re a good boy.”

Shane feels his entire face catch fire, and can’t quite meet Katie’s eyes, or even Steven’s, and grabs his phone before following Ryan out.

::

In the back of the Lyft, Ryan makes small talk with the driver and Shane stares out of the window the entire time. Ryan’s gone and clasped their hands together, and even though it feels every ounce of _right_ , there’s something wholly wrong with Shane for feeling like that.

When the driver stops in front of Ryan’s building, Shane’s sure to tip them, and helps Ryan out and into the building. In the elevator, Ryan’s arm winds around Shane’s waist, and Ryan rubs his face into Shane’s chest.

“I miss you—”

“I’m not doing this, Ryan,” Shane mutters.

“What?” he says, looking up at Shane with eyes that don’t look right. The sadness in them feels so empty. Shane’s eyes scrape over the hickeys on Ryan’s neck, and it strengthens his resolve to pull away.

“Whatever games you’re playing. I never thought you’d be like this,” Shane says.

Ryan huffs, and disentangles himself from Shane, only to push Shane up against the wall of the elevator. “You want me, don’t you?” Ryan says quietly. “You’re jealous I let someone else fuck me.”

Shane clenches his jaw. “You’re an adult, you can do whatever you want.”

“You _are_ ,” Ryan says, and he smiles, sharp and dangerous, armed with horrifying information. “You’re jealous because you _love_ me.”

Shane clears his throat, and the elevator stops. “Let me go.”

Ryan regards him for a moment, darkened eyes and wicked smile, and he pulls his hands away and walks off the elevator.

::

Shane sits on Ryan’s couch with his head in his hands as Ryan showers. It was a fight just to get him under the spray, and Shane doesn’t know how this became his life.

There are messages from Katie and Steven on his phone, and embarrassment rises up inside of him again, at the thought of Ryan’s words, so casually thrown for everyone to hear.

When Ryan comes out of the bathroom, he’s got a towel wrapped around his waist, a flush on his cheeks, and he comes to sit next to Shane.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but his tone seems off, disingenuous, like he’s forcing himself. Shane looks at him, considers the blank features of his face. Gives him the benefit of the doubt.

“Too little too late,” Shane says quietly.

“Stay. Sleep in my bed with me,” Ryan says, leaning into Shane, reaching up to touch his face. And if Shane was a better person, if Shane wasn’t so debilitatingly in love, if Shane wasn’t himself, he might have the strength to say no. But as it happens, he looks into Ryan’s eyes, and there’s something there, a spark or light or—Shane doesn’t know, but it’s something familiar, and it beckons Shane close.

::

It’s mid-afternoon before Shane makes it back to the office. Katie takes one look at him and frowns. Shane feels the shame bubble up inside of him, but he forces it down and away.

“Nothing happened,” he lies.

“It’s okay if something did, though,” she says, like she knows Shane’s resolve is shit when it comes to Ryan. “I have some notes I want you to look at.”

Shane’s thankful for the topic-change.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3

The next day, Ryan doesn’t speak to him, and Shane doesn’t really expect him to, but it still sucks to see the rift between them, a chasm split wide open without explanation. Shane wonders if this is what it’s like to be a believer; knowing there’s something there, even if he can’t see it.

Shane’s able to tuck it all away and face the facts; he doesn’t want to, but it’s not so difficult to take his seat next to Ryan at their shared desk, sat across from Katie, cross-ways from Steven. Right next to Ryan like he always is.

By lunch, Ryan leaves his desk, and Steven offers to grab lunch with him. He knows Katie and Steven are trying, even though they don’t have to, but there is something fragile about everything. Like one second, he could turn around, and every sleepless night, every day spent in Ryan’s kitchen could implode right before their eyes. 

“How are you?” Steven asks, his brown eyes soft at the edges, smile like Katie’s, full of sympathy.

“Oh, you know,” Shane says vaguely. He takes a bite of his burger.

Steven takes the hint.

Shane finds Steven’s company comforting; he doesn’t have the need to fill the silence with noise, so lunch, while quiet, is pleasant. Every so often, Shane looks up and Steven’s looking at him, offering him that same sympathetic smile. It puts Shane on edge, so he wracks his brain for something they have in common, landing on something-something midwestern, just so the tension bleeds away from the table, and it doesn’t feel like there’s an elephant sitting between them. By the end of lunch, Shane feels incrementally better.

::

It's later in the afternoon, about an hour before most folks call it quits for the day. Shane’s offered to do some editing, or really, wouldn’t let anyone touch this particular episode of Weird and/or Wonderful. After a quick bathroom break, he heads back for his desk. Ryan’s got his headphones on, writing in his moleskin that’s usually reserved for brainstorming. Shane wonders what he’s thought of. He wonders if he might be able to spark that conversation and have Ryan talk at him, a million miles a minute, full of excitement.

It’s been three days, and still, Shane feels like it’s been ages. Ryan’s hold on him was clearly much more than what Shane thought.

Shane sits, wiggling his mouse to wake his monitor. He glances over at Ryan, still scribbling, but none of its legible from where Shane is sitting.

Ryan pauses writing, and then starts again, and Shane realizes—

“When—why are you writing with your left hand?” Shane blurts out, before he can stop himself. Ryan’s hand stops, and he looks up, blinking his eyes before narrowing them.

“What?”

“You—you’re—” Shane waves his hand.

“Oh.” Ryan shifts his pen from his left hand to his right hand. “Oops.” He drops his attention back to his notebook and continues writing. 

“’Oops’? What do you mean ‘oops’?” Shane presses.

“Just oops, Shane, Jesus,” Ryan huffs, and shuts his notebook, his face scrunched up like he’s upset.

“People don’t just ‘oops’ themselves into writing with their non-dominant hand, Ryan.”

“Let it go; it’s not that big a deal.” Ryan stands up, closing the lid of his laptop, and stacks the notebook on top of it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Shane watches Ryan leave—brow furrowed and blinking—wondering just what the heavenly god-sent fuck is going on.

“Shane?” Katie’s voice calls. 

Shane spins in his chair to look at her. “Yeah?”

“What are you doing staring at the door, bud?” she asks, eyebrows raised. He can’t tell if she’s concerned or not.

“Ryan’s right-handed, right? Like I’m not just imagining it?”

“What are you talking about?” she says, recoiling from his stupidity. Shane sighs.

“I don’t know. It’s been a long week,” Shane mutters. He takes a deep breath and scoots his chair forward, wiggling his mouse to wake the monitor again. 

::

Later that night, Shane takes a long, hot shower. He stands underneath the spray of the water with his eyes closed, willing his mind not to think of anything at all. It works for the most part, soaping up his body, washing his hair, rinsing it all away.

He shuts off the water and pushes the curtain open, grabbing the towel on the rack. He starts with the water in his hair, then over his body, wrapping the towel around his hips. He tucks in the corner to keep it tight.

He walks in front of the mirror, and his heart kickstarts in his chest.

nɒγɿ qlɘʜ is written on the steam in the glass.

Shane backs away from his mirror and leaves the bathroom and looks around his apartment for—someone. Ryan had a key and Shane had never taken it back. It could be a prank.

But he’d never heard anyone come into the bathroom, and—and it seems out of place for Ryan to pull such a stunt given the context of their situation.

When he gets back to the bathroom, the letters are still there, faded, but he knows it’s Ryan’s handwriting. It’s Ryan’s writing on his mirror in his apartment where there isn’t anyone else.

Shane stares at it for a while, through brushing his teeth. When he spits out residual toothpaste, the letters are mostly gone. He rubs the mirror with the palm of his hand to take the rest of it away.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9

Late afternoon light spills through the curtains. The air in Shane’s bedroom is thick with haze, scented like the weed Ryan breathed into him. Lying back against the pillows with both hands behind his head, Shane lets his eyes fall closed, enjoying the bliss, the afterglow of lazy sex. Ryan sits on his lap, tracing his hands over his naked chest with the gentlest fingers Shane’s ever known. It’s enough to hypnotize him, but he can feel Ryan shift, leaning in. When Shane opens his eyes, he finds Ryan close, brown eyes reddened, framed by a fan of black eyelashes.

“Imagine if we did this sooner,” he laughs, rolling off of Shane and into the space next to Shane, hitching his thigh over Shane’s hip. Shane wheezes.

“Imagine if I was doing you sooner,” he says, curling his arm around Ryan, tangled up enough to have the reach to grab his ass.

Ryan laughs, rubbing his face into Shane’s chest, nipping at Shane’s skin. “Did you imagine it? Us doing it? Did you have real nasty fantasies about me?”

“Yep.”

“Tell me.”

“Nah.”

“Tell me.”

“Nah.”

“Tell me!”

“No!” Shane pushes Ryan over and onto his back and climbs on top of him. Ryan widens his thighs and invites Shane in so easily. They could have been doing this sooner, a lot sooner, probably light years before time stretched the space between them and neither of them had done anything to close the gap.

“Tell me,” Ryan presses, hands on Shane’s face, squishing his cheeks together. “ _Tell_ _me_.”

Shane slides a hand over Ryan’s waist, dragging his fingertips slowly across his chest, and touches a nipple.

“Don’t distract me,” Ryan huffs. “Tell me.”

“You’re being annoying,” Shane mutters, ducking his head down to shove his face into Ryan’s neck, kissing him.

“You knew that before you started fucking me,” Ryan says, but he bares his neck, and Shane stays there, right there, where Ryan’s pulse is thumping quicker and quicker underneath the touch of Shane’s lips.

Shane grins. “It’s kinda hot.”

“It’s hot when I’m annoying?” Ryan moans. “You’ve fucked up now, buddy.”

Shane laughs. “Maybe so.”

“I can’t believe you won’t tell me your fantasies. You should know by now nothing you do will scare me away,” Ryan says, fingers through Shane’s hair. “You’re all kinds of fucked up, and I like it.”

“That’s rude.”

“ _Come here rude boy, boy is you big enough_ ,” Ryan sings, off key and breathy, and Shane pulls back, laughing harder than he means to.

“Terrible,” he admonishes, but it comes out much too fond. Ryan’s smile brightens, sharpens; Shane’s given him too much ammunition.

“You like me so much you don’t know what to do with yourself, fucker.” Ryan’s so pleased with himself. It’s in the gentle crinkles by his eyes, the sweet curve of his smile, the glow of his eyes. “You like me so much.”

“That sounds fake,” Shane murmurs. Ryan tugs the hair at the back of his head. He hums.

“No, it’s real.”

“It’s a little bit real.”

Ryan giggles and Shane giggles and tucked away in their stoned little slice of life, Shane accepts it, accepts this, that he’s over the moon, among the stars, sitting on Saturn’s wings and swirling his orbit around the fact that he’s head over heels, ass over tits, pinky promises and birthday wishes, wholly and disgustingly in love with this man.

“Only a little bit?”

“Mhm.”

Ryan rubs the pad of his thumb over Shane’s lower lip, eyelids going heavy, smile softening into something seductive. “I think I can change that.”

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4

Filming is—difficult. Ryan’s energy is the lowest Shane’s ever seen it. He didn’t participate in the meetings and was mostly irritable when anyone pressed into the situation. Shane could tell Katie was at the end of her rope, and Steven was growing more and more impatient and upset. In a normal situation, it would be Shane to figure out how to unravel Ryan from his wound up anxiety, but Shane isn’t allowed to do that anymore.

As they film for their monthly livestream, Ryan just sits on the couch. He just sits there, and Steven and Shane carry the entire hour as Ryan remains quiet and aloof. Shane does his best to stay present and engaged, and Steven helps immensely as they answer questions from their patrons.

> _Is Ryan okay????_
> 
> _Ryan is quiet, RYAN U GOOD BUD?_
> 
> _what’s up with ryan today_

Shane doesn’t answer those questions. The hour drags on, the minutes ticking away as Steven and Shane fill the time with boring conversation. It’s not their best, and Shane feels bad in a way he shouldn’t have to, which then upsets him. 

When they log off, Steven saves the livestream to the Patreon, and Ryan gets up to leave. Shane slumps back against the seat back of the couch.

“We need to do something about Ryan,” Steven says quietly, looking up from the screen, laying his attention on Shane.

“Like what?”

Steven purses his lips. “I’m—I don’t know, but he’s been so—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I didn’t know you guys were—”

“We didn’t—” Shane sighs, dropping his head into his hands, running his fingers through his hair. “We never really decided what we were doing, so really, unless you’re supposed to be privy to the fact that we were having sex, then really, it doesn’t seem like there was anything to tell.”

Steven clears his throat. “No, I don’t suppose so. But look at you guys.”

“It’ll blow over. You know how Ryan is.”

“I do,” Steven says. “I’ve known him for years. And he’s never been like this. Not even after Helen. And he was _broken_.”

Shane can’t deny what Steven’s saying. There is something depraved about this, about Ryan; how unlike himself he’s being. And for some reason, Shane is to blame for it. Every time he goes over the details of it in his mind, he feels like he can’t correctly recall the descent into whatever this is. He only knows that there was light in Ryan’s eyes, and it’s all gone now.

“I don’t know what I did,” Shane says quietly. “I really don’t.” After a moment, there’s Steven’s gentle hand over his back, smoothing over his shoulders. Shane gets up.

::

Inside the bathroom, Ryan’s standing in front of the mirror, the water on, but his hands are by his side. Shane regards him curiously, but Ryan ignores him, keeps his eyes on himself.

Shane walks over to one of the urinals and starts in on his belt, and when he looks up, he looks into the mirror, and Ryan’s already gone and stepped away.

Ryan’s reflection doesn’t follow him. Shane feels a shock catapult and slam into his solar plexus.

Shane stares, his fingers stilled on the buckle of his belt as Ryan’s reflection stares back at him. The door to the bathroom closes, and the image in the mirror stutters, before it moves quickly, like a 4x scrub on a video.

Shane blinks at his own reflection in the mirror, quickly and frantic, waving his arms, forward stepping and back. Nothing out of the ordinary happens.

Shane sucks a breath into the tight compress of his lungs, feeling his heart skip and race inside his chest, banging a loud, ruthless rhythm against his sternum. It rattles in his ribcage, wrapping around his spine, churning his insides.

Shane redoes his belt and leaves the bathroom.

“Shane.”

He jumps at the call of his name. Ryan’s voice is sharp and darkened, like he’s angry. Shane looks at him, really looks at him. He takes in the curve of his jaw and the set of his eyes and—

Ryan gives him a slow smile, all teeth and shiny eyes. And then Ryan walks away and Shane’s left alone in the hallway.

::

Shane takes a coffee break. The sun is out, blinding and brilliant, radiating a summer-inspired heat, even as they delve deeper into autumn. His walk is brisk—the coffeehouse is just across the street. 

He’s experienced heartbreak before, he _has_ , but there isn’t anything that’s quite felt like this; his mind is turning against him.

Shane’s always been fairly cemented in his beliefs. There isn’t anything so far in the thirty-four years he’s been alive that has managed to sway him any which way other than people are people, and what happens after death is several levels of decay.

There’s _nothing_ out there. If he believes that, really believes it, and he does, then there is probably, most likely, something medically wrong with him. And if that’s the case, he hopes—whatever it is—it takes him quickly.

It’s hard to believe, is the thing. There’s so much unknown, yes, but the creepy-crawlies have always been made up. There has never been a moment to make him second-guess it all. Or even a small portion of it. Aliens, to an extent, but ghosts and the like? Supernatural beings? Something other than the flesh and blood of human beings? No, it’s impossible, and if it were possible, people would know about it with actual, concrete evidence, because it isn’t a secret to keep.

But there’s something very, very unnerving about that afternoon in the mirror and the night before in his bathroom. Shane doesn’t want to admit it to himself, so rather than do so, he finishes his iced coffee, leaves the coffeehouse, and walks back to the office.

::

It’s a quarter after five. He tests the office door to check if it’s locked, but the doorknob gives when he tests its turn. He makes his way inside and stills at the doorway.

Ryan is sitting at his station, typing quickly, faster than Shane’s ever seen him. Part of Shane, an old part, wonders what Ryan’s working on. Rather than ask, a newer part of Shane walks towards him, leaning over his shoulder to look.

> Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan
> 
> Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan
> 
> Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan

All Shane can read is the repetition of Ryan’s name for an entire page.

Ryan hits enter and continues onto another page.

The worry sets in faster than Shane can think things through, and Shane sets a hand gently on Ryan’s shoulder.

“Ryan?”

Ryan’s hand darts out and grabs him tight by the wrist, and when Ryan looks at him, his eyes are narrowed and mean; his face twisted in anger Shane’s never seen before. Shane gasps, yanking his hand back, which sends him stumbling; catching on a chair behind him, never taking his eyes off Ryan.

The sound of a low, quiet, feral growl is the only thing that resonates in the room.

“Ryan?” 

The growling stops and Ryan turns back to his screen, fingers still working at the keyboard.

Shane feels nausea as he steps forward, giving Ryan as much space as he can, grabbing his bag and making his way for the door again. He spares a glance at Ryan, and when he does, the sound of typing stops.

Shane leaves.

::

Breaks in psychosis happen. It happens to regular people like Shane, even young people like Shane. And he tries to fit himself into the categories of symptoms he looks up on his laptop at home, because he would rather there be something physically wrong with his body than to believe there’s something _else_.

He pushes his computer off of his lap, standing up from his couch and hesitantly heads over to the bathroom.

He hasn’t been holding it, but he hasn’t been excited to confront any reflections in the mirror either.

Inside, he relieves himself, leaving the door open, flipping on the light switch.

When he stands in front of the mirror, he washes his hands. When he looks at himself, it’s himself. When he moves, his reflection moves like he expects it to.

Shane reaches behind himself, feeling much more at ease than he has all day, and busies himself drying his hands on a hand towel. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches movement.

He looks at himself in the mirror.

Everything is normal. 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 10

Every single piece of relationship advice he’s ever been asked to give goes directly out of the nearest window. It’s difficult to take his own advice when everything feels so goddamn easy. When there isn’t a question of _how_. Just when and where and the quick answer of _okay_.

The first time they try having penetrative sex, it’s four in the morning, and Ryan’s woken Shane up.

“Wow, hi,” Shane mumbles into Ryan’s skin.

“I had a dream about you,” Ryan rushes to say, and it’s prevalent what kind of dream when Ryan pitches his hips forward and let’s Shane feel him. Shane rubs his hand slowly over Ryan’s hip, pushing up his t-shirt as Ryan leans in, kissing Shane’s chest, his collarbones, his neck. Shane keeps his eyes closed, enjoys the insistent, incendiary heat of Ryan’s mouth. 

“Oh, so not dead in this one,” Shane mumbles. 

“Nope, not even a little bit,” Ryan huffs. 

Ryan pulls Shane on top of him, and Shane fixes himself between Ryan’s thighs, kissing hot over his neck, his brain thinking only in snippets, a montage of Ryan’s sweaty skin, echoes of moans he’s heard Ryan make before.

“What do you want?” Shane asks, finding his mouth, grinding against Ryan as he hardens up far too quickly for just having woken. It makes him dizzy.

“Make love to me,” Ryan says softly.

“Oh,” Shane breathes. Shane leans up on his forearms and touches Ryan’s face with his hand, and Ryan leans into the touch. He can’t see him, but even in the darkness, he feels like he can see everything.

“Probably shouldn’t have said it that way, but ‘fuck me’ seemed so crass for the middle of the night,” Ryan says, and Shane laughs, leaning into kiss Ryan.

“Whatever you want,” Shane says against Ryan’s mouth, like his own breath might spill into Ryan’s lungs and leave the words tattooed there, so that every time Ryan breathes, he’s reminded. “You know that, right?”

“I do.”

With the lamp light on Shane can truly see everything now. He takes his time touching Ryan, all over his skin.

When Shane sinks slowly inside, Ryan grips his fingers into Shane’s waist and moans.

“Holy fuck, I’m being penetrated.”

Shane bursts into laughter, and then Ryan starts laughing, and time seems to stop as Shane collapses and they’re both laughing into each other, all over each other, for moments and moments. 

“Jesus Christ, Ry.” 

“I’m sorry, it was the first thing that popped into my head,” Ryan says through a flutter of laughter. 

_I love you,_ Shane wants to say as he breathes through another fit of giggles, and it feels so effortless. He doesn’t for a second think he could possibly want to take it back. “You’re—I don’t even know. But you’re it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ryan murmurs, Bambi eyes impossible in the dim bedroom light.

“Yeah,” Shane promises, kissing Ryan’s cheek, the line of his jaw. Ryan’s legs close around Shane’s waist and Shane shivers when Ryan slips his fingers through his hair, grasping at the back of his head. Ryan bears down around him and Shane groans, nipping at Ryan’s collarbones. 

“I like that,” he says, his voice quiet like a secret. “Like you.” 

Shane hums, pressing their foreheads together. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” Ryan puts both of his hands on Shane’s face and pulls him in for a kiss, and for a breathless moment, Shane’s body feels alive, catching fire, aware of every part of himself, zeroing in on every point their bodies make contact. Shane draws his hips back and presses forward, and Ryan gasps his name. 

It’s easy from there, taking it slow, rolling his hips into Ryan’s as Ryan holds him close. It feels like too much to watch each other all the while, but he can’t imagine focusing on anything that isn’t Ryan lying underneath him. 

“You feel so good,” Ryan whispers, eyes fluttering closed. “So good.” 

“Ryan,” Shane breathes, shuddering, hips canting forward; the muted touch of their skin and the creak of the bed the only sound over their harsh breathing. Shane groans, gripping Ryan’s thigh. He ducks forward and hides his face in Ryan’s neck, breathing hard against Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan’s arm circles around him, hand pressed low on Shane’s back. He keeps the other in Shane’s hair, fingernails brushing over his scalp. 

“Harder,” Ryan moans, the heels of his feet digging into Shane’s hips; Shane moves his hips to satisfy Ryan’s request, and Ryan arches underneath him, groaning. “Yes,” he moans. “Right there, babe, right there.” 

Shane feels the shimmer of praise ripple over his flesh, seeping into his skin. Shane leans up on his forearm, reaching between them to stroke Ryan out of rhythm from his own until Ryan comes, beautiful and loud and brilliant, shattering to pieces, splashing his release between them. 

Shane can’t help himself, thinks, _love you, love you_ , over and over again, until he’s coming, shoved deep inside of Ryan, bound by the hold of Ryan’s legs, his arms, the soft way he breathes Shane’s name. 

They lay against each other, until the alarm goes off, alerting them to wake. The morning greets them with citrus-hued light, filtering through the cracks in the curtains. Shane kisses slowly along Ryan’s neck, listening to his soft sighs, tangling like ribbons around the ventricles of his heart. Shane’s careful not to leave any marks with his mouth, even though he wants to. 

“One day,” Ryan says, “we’ll go on vacation, and you can mark me up however you like.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Shane asks, pulling back to catch Ryan’s mouth in a kiss before Ryan can answer him. 

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5

It’s been quiet for a Saturday. Shane’s left his phone in his bedroom, leaving Twitter alone, text threads unanswered, pausing the outside to regain some semblance of himself. He’s thrown on a new Netflix show to binge through, something he’s forcing himself to follow without the familiarity of knowing what is going to happen.

Obi appears for the first time that day, hopping up onto Shane’s lap. It’s nearing nine, and Shane’s stomach growls. He should get up and feed himself, order something, figure out what he’s going to eat, but instead, he lets the next episode auto-play.

He yawns, dragging his palm over Obi’s back.

Mid-way through the episode, the buzzer rings, and Shane contemplates ignoring it, but against what he knows he should do, he gets up to answer it.

“Yeah?”

“Let me in.” It’s Ryan’s voice, and he hasn’t talked to Ryan since the previous afternoon. He knows he should tell Ryan to go away and go back to watching his show, because he knows, he _knows_ if he gives in and lets Ryan up, nothing good can come of the situation.

And still, he clicks the button that gives a signal for the building door to unlock, looking down at his clothes and judging whether or not he’s presentable enough. 

Shane opens the door seconds after the knock thunders like a nervous heartbeat. Ryan stands on his doorstep, dressed neatly, in a shirt where the buttons start underneath his collar. There aren’t any holes in this pair of jeans. His sneakers are nearly sparkling.

“Hey dude,” Ryan greets him, pushing past him through the doorway. Shane swings the door closed.

“Why are you here?” Shane asks. He glances at the clock; 9:27 PM.

“Missed you,” Ryan says, leaning against the arm of his couch, crossing his arms over his chest. “Been thinking about you.”

“For someone who said they don’t want to continue something, you sure don’t know how to let it go,” Shane says, frowning. He fidgets with the fabric of his sleep pants, and then adjusts his glasses, and then crosses his arms over his chest, too. He feels thrown off, off-kilter, not knowing how to react or respond. 

“Aww, but you _like it_ ,” Ryan says, grin wide, certain. “Don’t you, baby?”

Shane clenches his jaw, rather than feed Ryan ammunition by telling him not to call him _baby_.

“Answer me, Shane.”

“No.”

“Come here.”

“Ryan—you should go,” Shane manages, dropping his arms from his chest. Ryan takes a step forward, shaking his head. His eyes are laser-focused, and Shane knows he’s been targeted. He can see it in the way Ryan stalks towards him, body lithe and dangerous.

“I said come _here_.” Ryan grasps a hand around Shane’s hip and pulls him forward, and without fighting, Shane lets his feet carry him towards Ryan, so their bodies meet. He feels a flush burn underneath his flesh, stark and insistent. “What am I gonna do with you, hmm?”

“Nothing, I don’t—”

“You do,” Ryan says quietly. “You want me.”

Shane swallows thickly.

“Even when I tell you I don’t want you. You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you? I could do whatever I wanted,” he continues, pressing a hand up and over Shane’s chest, “could break your heart, and still, we’d be here if that’s what I wanted.” Ryan cocks a smarmy grin that makes Shane’s heart jump in his chest. “Why is that, hmm? Cause you love me?”

Shane shivers, closing his eyes as Ryan touches him, sneaks both of his hands underneath Shane’s t-shirt, pushing it up and up until it’s coming off and dropping to the ground.

“You really could do better for yourself, Shane,” Ryan says. “But you’d rather let me just run you into the ground.”

Ryan backs him up hard, and Shane’s head lands with a thud against the door. He groans; Ryan presses himself to Shane, fuses their hips together. Ryan leans forward, pressing his mouth to Shane’s shoulder, just above his chest, in the space where, once upon a time, Ryan would lay his head while they slept. 

He’s never known Ryan to dive in with sharpened fingers and tear into the softest parts of Shane, when he was most vulnerable, naked with the emotions he’s always been so unwilling to share. He’s never known Ryan to hurt so deliberately, reach for the parts of Shane that wound him so viciously. He’s never known Ryan to be so cruel. 

And yet, even in that cruelty, jerking Shane this way and that, Shane follows every zig and every zag, willingly going wherever Ryan wants him to be. 

Shane presses his hands to Ryan’s waist, down and over his ass like he can pull Ryan closer. Ryan kisses his neck, and he can feel the bite of Ryan’s teeth when he sucks. Shane shudders, groans, stops fighting his body and shuts off the logical brain that tells him this is wrong. Instead, his cock hardens in his sleep pants, and he falls victim to the slow, torturous rolls of Ryan’s hips as Ryan keeps him pinned against the door.

“Fuck me,” Ryan demands. “I know you want to.”

Ryan’s voice is so curt, so caustic; Shane is catapulted back to a memory, four o’clock in the morning, and Ryan asking, “make love to me”. It’s so different— _he’s_ so different—Shane wants to protest, he wants to try again and tell Ryan to go, but Ryan’s moving away, taking Shane’s hand and leading him to his bedroom and closing the door behind them and—

And Ryan is absolutely, irrevocably correct that Shane would destroy himself for the smallest pieces of Ryan Bergara. Faced with the idea that he could have nothing, Shane would take the shards of broken glass Ryan gave him and cut up his fingers with them. 

Shane gives in fully. 

He stops pretending like he doesn’t want to be in this moment, peeling Ryan out of his clothes, kissing him hard and mean and rough—where their teeth click together, and Ryan’s tongue is sloppy over his own—licking into his mouth. 

He stops acting like he’s better than what Ryan elects to give him.

Cutting off the kiss, he pushes Ryan back onto his unmade bed, among the heaps of tangled blankets and looks at him. Ryan pants, grinning, long body naked, skin brown and unmarred except for the blocks of his tanlines. 

“You gonna take it out on me now?” Ryan asks, arching a brow. “Hurt me, Shane.”

“I’d never hurt you,” Shane murmurs. “But I want you to feel it.”

Ryan hums, spreading his legs. His cock sits wet and pretty at the very top of his thigh, reddened and flushed. “Come take what you want.”

Shane steps forward and climbs into bed, crawling up the length of Ryan’s body, and pulling him up so they’re strewn together in the middle of the bed. Ryan slips his fingers through Shane’s hair and pulls. An electric spark strikes every nerve-ending in Shane’s body and Shane groans, a deep sound broken apart from his chest. Ryan’s thighs part underneath him and Shane maneuvers his way between them, pressing their hips together. 

“You’re so hard for me already,” Ryan sighs. “Like you can’t get enough of me.” 

Shane moves quick, rutting against Ryan, pressing the buttons he knows so well to get Ryan to unravel. Ryan’s ankles hook on the insides of Shane’s knees, and rolls his hips—they’ve never been so out of rhythm. They’ve never not been synced up, on the same wavelength. His body aches for the Ryan that used to know him. 

“Here,” Ryan says, pushing the bottle of lube into Shane’s chest. “Be quick, I don’t have all night.”

What else does Ryan have to do? Why wouldn’t Ryan want to stay? Why come over at all if it was only ever going to be this?

Heeding Ryan’s warning, Shane slinks down Ryan’s body, fisting his cock as he smears kisses down his chest, his stomach. Ryan keeps his legs spread wide enough for Shane’s shoulders. Shane wishes he could enjoy the vision of Ryan on his bedsheets—this used to be his favorite part, teasing and taking his time, watching the beads of sweat that rise on the flushed brown of Ryan’s skin. 

But Ryan won’t let him, nudges him along with a tap of his knees. 

“Suck me off while you finger me,” Ryan says. “Make me _feel it_.” His voice is breathy, but still he mocks Shane with an ease that doesn't feel like banter. 

He does as he’s told, taking Ryan’s cock into his mouth, moaning around the hot feel of his length, how thick he is on Shane’s tongue. He pulls off with a lewd _pop_ , looking up the expanse of Ryan’s body, catching the dark glow of his eyes. 

“You look so good with a cock in your mouth,” Ryan decides, hands on his chest, fingertips circling his nipples. Shane’s cock twitches between his thighs, pulsing. 

Shane wets his fingers, and slides them inside of Ryan quick and hard, so Ryan moans loud into the otherwise quiet of the bedroom. Shane takes him back into his mouth, closing his eyes, using both of his hands to do as much as he can, clumsily twisting at the base of Ryan’s cock as he curls the fingers of his right hand to make Ryan shout. 

When he’s three fingers in, Ryan’s working his hips against Shane’s hand, nudging the tip of his cock down Shane’s throat. Shane tries to ease his breathing, but it’s near impossible, heart pounding in his ears. Ryan pulls at Shane’s hair, fingernails scraping against Shane’s scalp as Shane pulls off, a string of saliva and precum stretched between Shane’s mouth and the tip of Ryan’s cock. Shane leans forward and bites into the flesh of Ryan’s left hip, right above the scar.

“Fuck me, Shane,” Ryan demands, pulling at Shane’s hair again. “Now.” 

Panting, Shane wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, pulling his fingers out of Ryan and wiping them haphazardly against the bedsheets. 

“Did you forget how to say ‘please’?” Shane mutters, sitting back on his heels. Before Ryan has some smart ass remark to throw at him, Shane grabs Ryan’s hips and flips his body over, his knees knocking into Shane’s side before Ryan rights himself properly. 

“Not if it makes you like this,” Ryan finally answers him, his voice tinged with amusement. “You gonna put me where you want me, Shane? You gonna use me up?” 

Shane hauls Ryan onto his knees, and pitches his hips forward, rubbing the length of himself against Ryan’s ass, cock nestled between the cleft of his cheeks, catching over the wet rim of Ryan’s asshole.

“Come on, sweetie,” Ryan coaxes. “Put it in me. Split me open with your dick. Make me _beg_ for it.”

Shane watches as Ryan’s fingers tighten in the bedsheets; the sweet expanse of Ryan’s back catches the light; the grooves of his muscles from shadowed chasms—Shane wants to dig his fingers into all that flesh. 

Instead, he wets himself, slicks up the length of his cock, giving himself a few long, tight strokes before he rests the tip against Ryan, pushing in. 

“Oh, oh, oh,” Ryan moans, canting his hips back, swallowing Shane until he’s all the way and Ryan’s breathing hard underneath him. His spine sags like a suspension bridge. 

“Fuck,” Shane huffs, balls pressed into Ryan’s perineum, the two of them flush against each other. Shane slides his hands up the flushed, sweaty length of Ryan’s back, hooking his fingers over Ryan’s shoulders. 

It strikes something hot inside him, so Shane leans back, straightens his spine, and with his hands on Ryan's hips, gripping mercilessly, he gives Ryan exactly what he wants. 

He fucks him hard, relentless, unforgivably. Like he’s never fucked anyone before. The animalistic instinct rises inside of him and he doesn’t stop, is only urged forward and fast with Ryan’s voice, his abrasive moaning that scrapes along Shane’s insides. It’s nothing like the sensuality he’d always imagined when he thought about his body pressed against Ryan’s. He never thought to conjure up such a scene, where his handprint flares red against the bony flesh of Ryan’s hip when he moves his hand to keep the curve of Ryan’s back, pushing his palm down against Ryan’s spine. 

“Yeah, fuck, yes, yes,” Ryan groans, muffled into the bedsheets. Shane curls an arm underneath Ryan’s body, holding him close as he moves, shutting his eyes and hiding his face in Ryan’s flesh. Shane curses as Ryan thrusts his hips back, meeting Shane in the middle, the smack of their skin resonant in the bedroom, underneath the quick thumping of Shane’s headboard.

“Fuck, _Ryan_ ,” Shane grunts.

“Tell me how good I feel, Shane,” Ryan demands, his voice startlingly clear. When he turns his head, the hot, hot heat of his mouth brushes over Shane’s cheek. “Tell me you love me.”

Shane doesn’t say anything, even though he wants to say the words as they burn the tip of his tongue.

“Fucking tell me you love me!” Ryan demands again, louder, rougher, and Shane clenches his jaw, knowing he has some resolve. He _has_ to.

“I love you,” Shane murmurs quietly, because no matter what, Ryan is always going to be the best at breaking Shane down to his most basic form.

Desperately in love with his best friend.

Ashamed at himself for giving in, for sharing the rawest part of himself during _this_ , he turns his head, resting his cheek against the flexing muscle of Ryan’s shoulder. He catches the sight of the mirror leaning against the wall; it’s angled away so it doesn’t show their bodies, just the very end of the bed and—

Instead of some arbitrary section of Shane’s bedroom, the mirror shows him Ryan behind the glass, standing at the edge of his bed, palms pressed to the glass, watching with heartbreak written into his features, mouth parted, and brows knitted, eyes glassy.

Shane feels like his heart stops in his chest—he scrambles back away from Ryan’s body in his bed, glancing back at the mirror, looking at Ryan watching him. Ryan in the mirror blinks at him, closing his mouth and looking away. Shane moves to stand up, but a hand grabs the bend of his elbow.

“Oh, fucking Christ,” Ryan grumbles, moving quickly, stealing Shane’s attention away from the mirror. When Shane tries to yank himself away, Ryan’s hold is tight enough that Shane doesn’t break free. 

Ryan pushes him back down on the bed, where Shane can’t see into the mirror—he could tell Ryan no, he could stop, but he lets Ryan climb on top of him because he wants Ryan to take his cock inside again. 

“Finish what you started,” Ryan orders.

Ryan’s eyes are so dark they’re nearly black in the dim light of Shane’s bedroom. Ryan shifts his hips, the thick of his cock dragging against Shane’s belly, dripping wet. He feels like he’s going out of his mind, Ryan warm and wet and tight around him. His fingers dig into the flesh of Shane’s chest, fingernails biting as they scrape. Shane turns his head to the mirror, panting his breath, to see if they’re reflected as they should be, with Ryan sinking onto Shane’s cock, taking him so, so deep. Ryan grabs his face by his chin.

“Watch _me_ ,” Ryan commands.

Shane looks up at him, watching the pleasure that crosses his features, mouth parted as he moans. Ryan’s hand stays on his face as he fucks himself on Shane’s cock, but Shane wraps his arms around Ryan’s body and rolls them over, and finishes fucking Ryan into the mattress. 

The smack of their hips resonates in the bedroom, loud and filthy, the wet sound of Shane’s cock inside Ryan, as Ryan grunts underneath him. 

“Fuck me, fuck me,” Ryan murmurs. “Yes, yes—”

Without a hand around him, Ryan comes, heartbreakingly gorgeous underneath Shane. He spills between them, abundant, cock twitching when Shane looks down and watches the pool of cum that splatters Ryan’s flexing stomach. 

Shane comes moments later, grinding out the thrilling release of his climax inside Ryan. 

He doesn’t stay like he usually does; after the shocks peter out and Shane feels his body come down _hard_ , Shane pulls himself out of Ryan, and flops onto the bed next to Ryan’s body. He stares at the ceiling. 

When Ryan gets out of bed, messy, sweaty, and leaking Shane’s come, Shane notices the small shiny scar, and feels like—like it’s on the wrong side of his body.

Shane curls onto his side, bringing the blankets over himself, not bothering to follow and clean himself up. Shane stares at the mirror, even when Ryan returns and climbs into bed, wrapping himself around Shane’s body.

Shane, until he drops into sleep, keeps his eyes glued to the mirror.

Everything is normal.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6

They have drinks at a hole in the wall bar downtown, where there are two-for-one tequila shots that they absolutely take advantage of. Friday night hasn’t seen them shit-faced in a while—he’s too old to be drinking like this. But when Ryan grins, says, “C’mon, big guy, we ain’t done yet,” Shane has no choice but to keep up. 

They end up stuffed in the back of a Lyft, heading towards Shane’s. Ryan doesn’t add his address, doesn’t take his own ride, and Shane feels that familiar hope bubble, when he turns to look at Ryan, the light of the streetlamps glowing on Ryan’s face as they drive down the freeway. He’s drunk, and he knows better than to stare, except he doesn’t have it in him to turn away. Ryan doesn’t look at him anyway, just stares out of the window, eyes somewhere beyond the glass. 

Shane wonders what he’s thinking. 

::

“I think I’m dying,” Ryan grumbles from the couch underneath a heap of blankets. Shane also thinks he’s dying, but he manages to crack a smile, passing by the couch and into the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot. He doesn’t bother turning the light on. 

“Eggs, please,” Ryan calls from the couch, and Shane shakes his head. Thinks about Ryan asking him for eggs in a bed they’d share. 

The craving rears its head again, full force, thick. He really has become content with knowing that he and Ryan were just friends and nothing else. He really has, but somehow, he’s forgotten contentment, has given it up and settled himself in the thick of his pining. 

When Ryan comes into the kitchen, he’s wearing nothing but his boxer briefs. “Morning,” he says, leaning against the door jamb. “I didn’t smell any eggs.”

“I’m not making you eggs.” 

“I’m hungry, so you should.” 

“Make them yourself.” 

“They taste better when someone else makes them,” Ryan reasons.

He doesn’t even look at Ryan, but he’s already given in. 

Saturday morning finds them well, sprawled over Shane’s couches, ignoring work emails they could answer in favor of this: Shane lying on his back, reading through a neglected novel, and Ryan watching a docu-series on aliens with the volume on low. 

Every so often, Shane tosses a glance towards Ryan, and this time, he finds Ryan’s fallen asleep, curled up on the loveseat. There’s a furrow between his brow. Shane wonders if he’s dreaming. 

Setting his book down, Shane quietly gets up, pulls the blanket from the seat-back and drapes it over Ryan’s body. Ryan doesn’t stir, and Shane makes his way into the kitchen for a cup of tea. 

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6

Of course, Ryan is gone in the morning. Like it never happened. Shane feels it in his body, aching in his joints, the way good sex usually leaves him boneless and useless.

It’s never left him so hollow.

Shane rubs his face into his pillowcase, blinking his eyes open fully, glancing at the mirror. There’s nothing weird; nothing odd. It’s just a mirror.

When Shane gets out of bed and stands in front of it, he doesn’t find anything abnormal. It reflects what it should.

Then why would his mind conjure such a visceral image?

::

Shane runs.

He takes the same route and runs and runs and runs, until there’s a wildfire spreading in his lungs like an unattended campfire, until he feels like he can’t breathe.

He runs until his legs feel like they might give out, and he keeps going. His shirt is soaked and his eyesight blurs and the music in his ears is garbled underneath the impassioned bass drum of his heartbeat. He feels like he’s drowning, physically, mentally, emotionally, thoroughly and completely. He doesn’t feel like himself.

He doesn’t know who he is anymore.

::

When he wakes up, he’s on the cold tile of the bathroom floor in his apartment. It reeks like vomit.

Running seems to have given up on him, like his one reprieve from the mental gymnastics that has taken over his mind has turned and attacked him. Shane sits in the bathroom for a while, knees close to his chest, arms wrapped around his shins. 

He’s losing it. He can feel like his grasp on reality is much too loose; his steadied and sturdy skepticism is withering away. He’s been _seeing_ things. As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, Shane can’t negate it. Every time he does, something else happens, and it’s bigger and worse than what happened before. 

Admitting it won’t do anything—it’s not like he can talk to Ryan, the only other person he _would_ talk to about whatever’s happening. Something is wrong with Ryan, and there’s something wrong with the mirrors. 

Bottom line, there’s something wrong with Shane, and it’s easiest to sit on the bathroom floor and sulk about it, rather than search for a solution. He could be violent, smash glass, watch the shattered shards fall to the ground. He doesn’t think, not really, that it would fix anything. 

Maybe—maybe he should just leave Watcher. He could give away his part—he doesn’t care about the money. He could leave California and go back home to the suburbs, find a place there, where the mirrors don’t fuck with the fragility of his mind. He could find peace of mind somewhere else. 

It would break everything—whatever he’s working through has to pass, and running away would only make it worse, but it’s what he knows how to do best. Shane could pick up some boxes, pack his things and—

Shane feels the prickle of emotion in his throat, and takes a few big, deep breaths to keep it down.

Obi comes walking into the bathroom, nudging the tip of his nose against Shane’s ankle. Shane lifts his head, blinking slowly. 

“Hey little buddy,” Shane whispers. “Think your old man’s crazy?” 

Obi sits on his hind legs, looking back at him with clear eyes. Shane half-way thinks he’s about to hear his cat speak to him. 

As it happens, Obi meows, and Shane reaches for him, pulling him onto his lap when Shane crosses his legs, leaning back against the bathtub. 

“You’re probably hungry, huh?” 

Obi meows at him.

“Alright, alright.” His knees crack when he gets up. 

::

After feeding Obi, Shane drapes himself along the couch, feeling hollowed out and tender. Confronted with too much to think about. 

He can’t stop conjuring the image of Ryan’s hands pressed against the glass of the mirror, watching him. 

_Watching_ him, even while Shane was—otherwise occupied—with Ryan’s body. 

It doesn’t make sense, and Shane’s trying so hard to make it make sense. He gives himself a headache. 

Shane regrets, more than anything, that he didn’t have that stupid fucking conversation with Ryan at the carnival. He could have just told Ryan “Yes, I want to be with you” in plain words, simple words, words that don’t have to be picked apart, deconstructed, and analyzed. He could have just told Ryan what Ryan wanted to hear, because it’s what Shane wanted anyway. But because of his cowardice, he’s lying here, feeling sorry for himself, wondering when Ryan’s going to come back around and give him another hit. 

::

When an appropriate bedtime rolls around, Shane hauls himself up off the couch and figures he may as well sleep and get ready for whatever nonsense will happen in the morning. 

He takes an indulgent, long, hot shower, letting the water pound against his shoulders, keeping his eyes closed as the shower spray saturates and soaks his flesh. 

Idly, he wonders how difficult it would be to fake his death and move to Iceland, become a farmer and live in solitude, grow a beard and be weird. His mom would miss him, so that’s out, he guesses. 

When the water runs cold, he shuts off the knob. 

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

It’s a quiet day; Ryan keeps to himself, save for a wicked smile, a blank look, more creepy antics to send Shane’s mind for a loop. Shane avoids mirrors as best as he can. 

When the end of the day rolls around, Ryan heads out without goodbyes. Steven follows, and the office staff slowly trickles out, until the only people left in the office are Katie and himself. 

Shane continues working, editing the same scene he has been for the last hour, unproductive as ever, trying to work up the nerve to talk about what he’s been seeing. He doesn’t know why he thinks it should be Katie, but when she stands up from her desk, stretching her arms over her head, Shane knows it’s now or never. 

“Have a good night,” she says, gathering her things. 

“Can I talk to you, actually?” he makes himself say, attempting to lay the floor. 

“Sure?” She narrows her eyes. “What’s up?”

Shane sits back against his chair, looking at her. He swallows and blinks and fidgets because he doesn’t know how he’s going to say what he’s going to say. 

“This is going to sound—I know how this is going to sound,” Shane starts, picking at the strap of his watch. 

“Come on, bud, spit it out,” she says, adjusting the strap of her bag over her shoulder. She leans against the desk.

“Something is weird about Ryan,” he continues. “Like—like, he writes with his left hand. And he—”

“Shane, believe me when I say I’m—I’m trying to be kind,” she says sincerely, but her face hardens, completely without sympathy. “But I think you’re neck-deep in your emotions, which you don’t know how to face. Ryan broke up with you, and as shitty as it was, this is some—”

“No—I mean, yeah, but—his behavior, like he’s an asshole, but he’s not _this_ much of an asshole,” Shane counters.

“So, what? He’s being rude. People have low points, and he’s possibly wading in it right now.”

“No—his reflection is weird.”

Katie looks at him, like she’s tasted something sour. “What?” The tone of her voice is flat, exasperated, irritated. 

“His reflection,” Shane presses. “Sometimes it moves when he’s not moving, and Saturday— _yesterday_ —”

“I think you need to really, _really_ consider seeing someone. This obsession isn’t healthy.”

“ _Obsession—”_

“Shane, you’re obsessed. And that’s fine, it happens when we get chewed up and spit out before we’re ready to let go.”

“Spit out,” Shane echoes.

“But if Ryan doesn’t want to be with you anymore—”

“He does, at least—I don’t know, Katie, he has to if he keeps coming over—”

“The last thing I want is for this to affect the company. Don’t you understand that?” Katie urges. “Listen. I get that there’s always been something there, and now that you’ve explored it, and it didn’t work, you have to let it go. There’s so much content that we offer that rides on yours and Ryan’s personality. There isn’t a duo like the two of you, so if whatever you and Ryan have started and finished is going to impact that, then it’s going to affect every single person you see on a daily basis.”

“Katie—”

“No, Shane. I’m not going to let whatever it is that you and Ryan have done ruin everything. You have to know that what we’re doing relies on you and Ryan being amiable, hmm? And if you two don’t get your fucking shit together, we’re toast. You and Steven don’t have the dynamic, and neither do Steven and Ryan. There’s no two idiots on the planet that work like two of you together. So, I suggest, you hire someone to talk to, and really talk to them, and figure out what you can do to move past it.” Katie stands up then. “Have a good night.”

She rounds the edge of the desk, and when she leaves, the door closes with a gentle slam. 

Shane doesn’t stick around the office for much longer. 

During the car ride home, he tries to forget the conversation, but embarrassment chips at his composure, and by the time he makes it inside of his apartment, the exhaustion of the day is so heavy on his shoulders. 

The thing is, she’s right. If there was ever a time to think about seeing someone, and having someone pick through his brain, a licensed professional is what he needs.

He’s too tired to look into it. He makes himself dinner and feeds Obi. He contemplates going for a run—maybe he’s better, and it won’t tear him apart like it had the last time. He figures he better not test it. 

In the bathroom, he pulls his toothbrush from its holder and squeezes toothpaste onto the bristles.

When he looks up his whole body locks and freezes, dropping the toothbrush and toothpaste into the sink with a muted clatter. He turns to look behind himself and sees no one behind him, so how is it, when he looks in the mirror, Ryan is looking back at him? 

Shane can see Ryan’s mouth moving, but he can’t hear him at all, but Ryan _looks_ like Ryan. And in his desperation to make it make sense, Shane reaches his hand out to touch the glass, and it doesn’t go through; it’s cold against his hand. 

Ryan’s face splits into a grin, and Shane doesn’t attempt to say anything, but his heart races when Ryan’s hand raises to the glass, mirroring his own. It’s odd; the vision of their bodies in the mirror shows Ryan standing behind him. On the back of his hand, he can feel the warmth of flesh, but there isn’t anything there. He’s alone in his bathroom, with a reflection. 

In the mirror, Ryan holds a finger up to his mouth, like he’s telling Shane to be quiet. Applicable, even though Shane hasn’t said anything yet. Shane smiles at him, and Ryan smiles, big and bright and real, just like he’s always known.

“Miss you,” Shane says. Because he does. Because whatever Ryan he’s got now isn’t warm like his Ryan is. This Ryan has heat in his palms as he sets them over Shane’s chest, holding Shane in a way he hasn’t been held in a long while. It reminds him of the supply closet, of when Ryan was Ryan for the last time Shane can remember.

Shane takes his hand from the glass and touches over his chest where Ryan’s hands are. He can’t feel them, but there’s warmth there, burrowing through his flesh. Shane closes his eyes and stands there, feels it, feels the way Ryan seems to touch him, bending reality.

It tickles when he feels Ryan’s fingers walk up his stomach, over his sternum. He pinches Shane’s nipples and Shane opens his eyes, laughing, feeling lighter than he has in ages. 

Who cares if he’s losing his mind when it feels like this, that floaty, freeing feeling? Like that night at the bar. Everything seemed so easy then, when they’d fallen into each other. 

Shane catches Ryan’s eyes in the mirror, amber and tiger eye gemstone. Shane tries touching Ryan’s hands again, watching himself in the mirror. The warmth bleeds through his fingers, his palms, and if Shane concentrates enough, it’s like he _can_ feel Ryan’s flesh, flushed and hot. 

Behind him, Ryan rubs his face into his shoulder, hiding behind him. He wants to reach into the glass and pull Ryan out, but because he can’t, he wants to stay here, standing in his bathroom, watching Ryan look back at him in the mirror. 

After a few moments, Ryan fades away without saying goodbye, and Shane’s left alone.

He stares at his own reflection, the tired underneath his eyes, the flush in his cheeks. He switches off the light after cleaning up when he leaves the bathroom for his bedroom.

Climbing into bed, he settles underneath the blanket. He wishes so deeply, that the bed would dip with Ryan’s weight, that Ryan would slide an arm around his body, and they’d fall asleep like those nights at the very beginning, they didn’t have to keep up the pretense that they weren’t in love, that they didn’t want to be together, wrapped up in each other.

As it happens, the bed is cold and he’s alone, knowing that something bad has happened to Ryan Bergara.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8

The sun is barely over the horizon when Shane pushes through the office doors. All the lights are off and he’s the first to arrive—at least, that’s what he thinks until he sees Ryan is sitting at his desk, staring at a blank screen.

Shane’s spent very little time falling into his nervousness. He has the ability to shove it away, convince his brain that he’s fine, and move on. But here, knowing that he needs to do something about Ryan—talk to him? Confront him?—Shane feels the anxiety creep in, bubbling like a stomachache.

“Hey man,” Shane says tentatively. Ryan turns slowly, looking at him with blank eyes. When he blinks, he seems to shake out of it, coming to life, recognition in his irises.

“Shane. You’re early.” The tone of his voice is flat, and he doesn’t sound like Ryan at all. Or maybe, now that Shane’s ready to believe, he’s just now noticing.

“Yeah, uh. I thought I would get some editing—"

“I know you know,” Ryan says easily, much too cool. The playing field isn’t level, and Shane knows shit about sports, but he knows from Ryan’s ramblings that this has something to do with a home-court advantage.

Shane feels his heartbeat pick up, ticking quicker and quicker like a time bomb. Morbidly, he wishes it would just give out already. 

“Know what?” he says carefully. 

“Cut the shit, Shane,” Ryan says, standing up out of his chair. “There’s only one mirror that’ll switch us back. And it’s in Seattle.” 

“ _Seattle_?” 

“Are you coming or not?” Ryan says, grabbing his bag from the floor, and looping the strap over his shoulder. 

“What do you mean by switch—like, I get…I get the real Ryan back?”

“Bingo,” Ryan says, pushing past Shane. Shane stands there in the middle of the office, taking in a deep, heavy breath. He hopes Katie forgives them skipping out.

::

For the last handful of years, Shane has spent a lot of time in the passenger seat of Ryan’s car. Most of the time, there’s music playing low and conversation is full and abundant. Sometimes it isn’t just a companionable quiet between the two of them—Ryan’s humming and nonsense songs usually fills the void.

Shane stares out of the window, watching the cars pass them on the highway. It’s eight in the morning, and Seattle is seventeen hours away, so it’s going to be a long, boring drive.

He has a feeling this Ryan isn’t going to want to play I-Spy.

::

After about two hours, Shane flips on the radio, lets something pop-ish play. Ryan shuts it off.

“Are we just going to sit here in the quiet?” Shane asks.

Ryan doesn’t answer him.

Shane leans his head on the door and scrolls through twitter again.

::

By lunchtime, Shane’s stomach is growling. They’re still in California; Ryan parks at an In N Out, and Shane gets food, eating it in the car, legs semi-squished inside the foot wells of the passenger seat. His phone battery is drained from playing Flappy Bird, but he hasn’t made it far, too wound up to.

He switches between that, Candy Crush, Twitter, Instagram, and back through again, all between looking at Ryan, watching Ryan, trying to figure out how the fuck he hadn’t known immediately that this guy wasn’t Ryan at all.

And maybe he was, to a degree. Some of the mannerisms were the same; the lexicon hadn’t changed the way he styled his hair.

His grin, though, had grown so sharp Shane could imagine the razor points of teeth. His eyes had darkened so much they were almost black, like the demons he knew Ryan believed in. He was flesh and blood, yeah, but the touch of his hands was colder than Shane was used to.

He’d gotten so used to Ryan, and even then, he hadn’t known.

Part of him thinks he can’t, then, be as in love as he’d thought. But that’s negated by the agony he’s felt the last week—waiting for Ryan to come around and destroy him again.

And that wasn’t fair to Ryan, was it? Ryan was a gentle guy. Couldn’t hurt a fly, the people would say. A soft man, the internet claims. Shane knows better than anyone that he’s got a heart bigger than he knows what to do with.

He remains that Ryan can be an asshole—it’s not a secret that Ryan has sharpened edges when he’s backed into a corner, when he’s tired, when he’s hungry. Ryan can be the serrated edge of a blade when it really comes down to it. 

His Ryan liked a good joke, and gluttonous trips to Taco Bell, and hot boxing his car before heading out to the beach and throwing rocks in the ocean and dragging Shane up onto the Ferris Wheel. His Ryan was good, deep in his core, with beaming brown eyes and a daydream of a smile. His Ryan was annoying and scared and real and warm.

Shane turns to look at Ryan, and he doesn’t look any different, but his energy is all off. Shane sighs.

::

When night falls, they cross over into Oregon. Shane’s tired, the constant road noise lulling him into sleepiness.

“Why?” Shane asks.

“Why what?”

“Why did you switch at all?”

Quiet spills into the cab of the car; Shane thinks Ryan isn’t going to tell him, isn’t going to offer an explanation. And Shane isn’t okay with that, is sincerely wishing there were answers to these questions that Shane’s been dodging.

“I wanted to see what all the fuss is about.”

“The _fuss_?” Shane says, surprised.

“Oh, didn’t you know? Ryan would hang himself by the balls just to be near you. And sure, I get the memories, but I don’t get to feel it. And honestly? Not worth the trouble,” Ryan says flippantly, taking his right hand off the wheel and waving it. “Dick was good, though, so.”

A flush overtakes Shane’s face in waves of heat, and Shane clears his throat. “So, you’re just giving up?”

“Sure. I got what I wanted.”

“And what was that?”

This time, when quiet falls, it keeps.

::

The steady blink of the streetlamps over Shane’s face hypnotizes him, and he lets himself fall asleep. He doesn’t dream, but the whole week has felt like a dream, hazy and unreal, almost tangible, like he’s been living in fast forward and rewind, something slow motion that doesn’t quite reveal the plot until it’s too late. He’s lost the focus.

When he wakes up, the clock on the dash tells him it’s many hours later.

“Where are we?” Shane croaks, clearing his throat and sitting up in his seat, an ache in his back from sitting so long. When he stretches his arms, his hands hit the roof, knuckles knocking into the headliner.

“An hour or so outside of Seattle,” Ryan says quietly, not looking at all towards Shane but keeping focus outside of the windshield. Shane folds his hands in his lap.

::

The carnival at night with all the lights off is haunting.

The sound of the car doors slamming echoes through the air; Ryan starts towards the entrance, and Shane thinks the fence is going to be locked, but it pushes open when Ryan tries.

Shane knows, in this moment, that there isn’t any more room for questions, because what will happen will happen, without the kind of explanations that could ease his skeptical mind. Whatever happens will happen, whether he wants it to or not, and he takes the moment to suspend his disbelief and leans into the fact that he’s following Ryan Bergara’s reflection into a room full of mirrors states away from home, so he can save the real Ryan. 

Part of Shane thinks the lights and music will spontaneously come on, like in the climax of a horror film. Everything stays quiet and dark, only the light of the moon, and the nearest streetlamps to light the way.

The fun house doesn’t look so fun. There isn’t a door, just the archway. No attendant to wave them in. It looks exactly like it had in California.

The air is cleaner in Washington, filtered by trees; Shane takes another deep breath before following Ryan up the rickety wooden steps that creak beneath his feet.

Shane switches on the flashlight on his phone. It illuminates the way, but the glow of the light looks ominous with all the mirrors surrounding them. Shane catches the shadowed reflection of himself, Ryan walking in front of him and—

He walks himself into a mirror. He can hear Ryan muttering, “Idiot.” Shane quickens his step to catch up.

The mirror doesn’t look like it’s anything special. Just old and framed with black railings, singled away from the rest of the mirrors. The glass doesn’t shimmer or glow, but when Shane stands in front of it, he notices he doesn’t have a reflection.

Moments pass and nothing happens; Ryan doesn’t move from where he’s standing by Shane, and Shane keeps looking from the mirror to Ryan, and back and forth, expecting _something_ to occur. They can’t have travelled seventeen hours in Ryan’s tiny little car just for them to stand here.

“So, what happens now?” Shane asks, his voice loud, breaking the silence.

“They should have showed up, and Ryan and I could have taken each other’s spots, but it seems as though we’re going to have to go in.”

Shane’s eyebrows raise. “Me? Why do I have to go in?”

Ryan looks up at him, deadpan gaze, lips downturned in an unimpressed frown. “So, you can bring Ryan back.”

“Can’t he just step out?” Shane asks, uncertain. It doesn’t feel _necessary_ for him to have to go in, too, if all they’re doing is swapping bodies. “Take a penny, leave a penny, you know?”

“It’s a magic mirror, Shane. We both go in, and you and Ryan come out.” The tone of Ryan’s voice leaves no room for argument, nothing for Shane to fight. Shane clenches his jaw and turns off the flashlight on his phone, pocketing it.

With rapt attention, Shane watches as Ryan sticks his hand out and presses it against the glass and pushes through.

Shane’s heart starts up in his chest, alert and awake, slamming against his sternum. His head fogs with dizziness—he doesn’t get scared often, but it’s impossible not to, when he’s seeing what he sees and hasn’t a single clue what’s waiting for them on the other side.

After a second, Ryan steps forward and over the bottom of the mirror frame, and he’s swallowed up by liquid glass. Shane looks around him, at his surroundings, and then he copies Ryan’s movements, palm against the glass—

—and he steps over the threshold, into dim light, an exact replica of where they were, only—

“Shane! No!” It’s Ryan’s voice, and when Shane whips his head around to look for the voice, his body is enveloped by a pair of arms. Shane grunts as he struggles to get himself free—and realizes it’s Ryan. “He’s trying to keep you here!”

“ _Ryan_.” Shane wraps his arms around Ryan’s waist, holding him tight. His actual body, hot and solid, and real. It’s short-lived, as Ryan is _torn_ from his hold, and hands are grabbing the back of Shane’s clothes, pulling them apart. Shane feels his stomach turn, sickening, and saliva floods his mouth—

“Quit fighting,” comes the voice behind him. 

Shane’s always hated his own voice on a recording, but to hear it in his ear as he struggles against the grasp another body has on him startles him still, stealing the fight right out of him. He can hear the faint noises of a struggle elsewhere, and his body remembers to react. 

The hold his own reflection has on him is much stronger than Shane could ever hope to be, and he realizes he’s made a grave mistake, trusting Ryan’s replica, when he should have trusted his gut. 

“Let me go,” Shane demands, shifting his shoulders like he might wiggle away, but the acid in his stomach roils again. He’s so exhausted and his body aches. His own reflection says nothing to him, but he does take Shane and throws him up against the wall. It’s hard enough that the force knocks him into the nearest mirror, glass shattering all around him as he falls to the ground, hitting the back of his head. The impact knocks the breath out of him.

Dizziness overtakes him, and he can feel his body being dragged; there’s the muted sounds of shouting—Ryan’s screaming his name. 

He feels like his chest is on _fire_ , his lungs burning as he’s desperate, gasping like he’s drowning.

Through blurry eyes, Shane sees his own reflection. The replica of himself. Tall and lanky, long-limbed. The features of his face are familiar, but also oddly unrecognizable. It’s his hair, and his mustache, and his nose, but the eyes aren’t right. 

Shane’s well-versed in hiding his emotions away from showing on his face, but there has never been a time where he looked so vacant, so hollow. 

He may as well have buttons for eyes. 

Nausea rears its head, rising up his esophagus; the replica of himself kneels in front of him, and when Shane looks down at what he’s doing, he realizes, much too late, that he’s being tied with a neon orange extension cord. 

“Let him go! Please!” Ryan’s voice rings in the air, frantic and frenzied. Shane finds him, held by the replica; eyes glimmer inhuman in the dim light when Shane shifts between his Ryan and the imposter. 

Exactly the same, but he can tell, goddamn it, he can tell which one is his.

Shane makes a noise, tries to push his weight against the arms that hold him, but they don’t budge. “Let me go,” Shane grunts, but he’s met with silence, only Ryan’s voice as the two Ryan’s continue to shout at each other. 

“Why go through all the trouble? Why make me seem worse than I really am?” Ryan asks.

“But this is _you_ , isn’t it, Ry?” The replica says, walking towards them. “I am you. I’m all your fears and anxieties. You look at me every morning and every night and tell me all the bad things about us. When you feel stupid, when you feel ugly, when you’re angry and depressed and _sad_. That’s all I get. All the components of your worst self, and you get all the good stuff. And for what? _For what?_ You waste it all.”

Ryan pushes the replica back, and the two of them use their fists and knees to combat each other, hurting each other, even as Shane shouts for the replica to leave Ryan alone and let them go. His voice grows hoarse, rougher and rougher as he screams. He feels like he’s underwater, muted and unheard. 

“I’ll just leave you here,” the Replica Ryan taunts. “I’ll let you two have your own happily ever after, tied up together, and I’ll take this Shane with me.” 

“You guys don’t even love each other, why would you want to take _him_ back?” Ryan asks, his voice so matter of fact it breaks right through Shane. 

Shane’s own replica makes a broken noise, something pained, unearthed by Ryan’s words. Shane tries to find the thread, to think about what’s happened. 

Through the haze of his headache, Shane watches as the two Ryans shove at each other; it’s too much to watch, like being drunk or sick. His vision fails to separate them, and Shane loses track of who’s who. He can’t tell who has the upper hand, not when they anticipate each other so easily—Ryan’s never been one for fighting, but he’s worth betting on, except they’re matched, practically a draw. 

“I’m not staying here,” Ryan seethes—he grabs Replica Ryan by the shoulder and backs him up hard. The mirrors shake all around them. “You’re ruining everything.”

“You don’t take what you want, Ryan. You let the world decide for you. Decide for _yourself_ ,” Ryan’s replica shouts.

“I _am_ deciding for myself. I’m not staying here!” 

“Where you gonna go? With _Shane_?” the replica laughs. “You _could_ do better. In fact, _I’ve_ done better with your skin. You were so mad he didn’t want to talk to you. Look what _you_ did.” 

“You’re mad because he loves me. My Shane loves me and you have—you have _this_ one. This _broken_ one.” 

Shane’s eyes drift closed, recoiling at Ryan’s accusation. 

If there’s anything Shane is certain of, there isn’t a single version of him, in any universe, dimension, or moment in time that isn’t completely in love with Ryan. It’s just impossible to fathom that there could ever be a world where Shane doesn’t feel so strongly. 

Shane looks at his replica, those hollow eyes, and something flickers—something he knows. 

The inability to say what he feels when he feels it, because the idea of rejection is so debilitating, he’d rather have the ache of never knowing versus the heart stopping pain of being pushed away. 

He’s lost track of the Ryans in his epiphany. 

Quietly, in words so certain, Replica Shane says, “He knows I love him.”

“Does he, though? Does he? Look at him. Look what he’s doing. He’s hurting Ryan because he knows _I_ love Ryan. Do you tell him you love him?” 

Replica Shane looks over at the two Ryans; Replica Ryan has Ryan against a mirror, holding him by the throat. The quiet horrifies Shane. 

“Please, please, if you love him, you’ll tell him. He’s going to hurt him and we won’t—we can’t handle something like that. Just tell him you love him, so we can go home,” Shane pleads, with every part of his being. 

“It’s—it’s—he _knows_ ,” his replica answers him.

“He doesn’t fucking know! Look at him! Look what he’s doing! He’s going to kill Ryan, because you’re too _fucking_ scared to tell him you love him.” 

A bright cackle flickers through the air, and Shane feels it roll in waves down his spine. He can hear Ryan’s wheezing breaths, but all he can do is stare at his reflection straight in the eye. 

“Tell him you love him, for the love of god. _Please_ ,” Shane nearly sobs, casting his gaze back to the two Ryans. Ryan’s eyes flutter, and he scrapes at Replica Ryan’s hands, fingers like talons. 

Replica Shane moves then, quick across the empty space until he’s pulling Replica Ryan away from Ryan. Ryan crumples to the ground. 

“Ryan? Ryan! Ryan, look at me,” Shane calls, and Ryan coughs, his hand on his throat as he gasps for air. 

Shane looks away for a second, just for a moment, and catches sight of his replica and Ryan’s, pressed together. Shane’s heart flutters—watching them, as his replica takes Replica Ryan in by the waist, tender like he knows himself to be in moments of naked intimacy. He sees his mouth move, hopes and hopes and hopes it’s the confession of the century. 

It seems like it is when he sees them kiss. 

And it dawns on Shane that quite possibly, there isn’t a version of Ryan, anywhere, that isn’t in love with Shane, too. 

When Shane looks away, he finds Ryan crawling towards him, hands quick as they untie the rope. 

“Shane, come on,” Ryan urges, helping him up. It feels like sneaking through the back door, the way they leave their reflections inside, even as Shane turns back to look, and catches Replica Ryan’s eyes looking back. 

He follows Ryan out, hand in hand. The force of them leaving the mirror knocks them both to the ground; everything is loud, ringing in Shane’s ears, his vision blurry like the room has filled with smoke. 

Shane hits his shoulder so hard his vision whitens, and a blistering wave of pain shoots throughout his arm, his spine. He cries out, curses, blinking his eyes like it’ll help ease it away. It doesn’t. 

“Shane?” Ryan’s voice comes, frantic and loud, and Shane can hear it over the thumping of his heart in his ears, the tinny sound of an elongated ringing. “Shane!” 

When Shane’s vision returns, his eyes focus on Ryan, looking down at him. His nerve endings seem to come back online, and he can feel the shaking warmth of Ryan’s hands on his face. Ryan looks—haggard, scared, his features pinched and—

“Shane, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Shane grunts. Shane reaches up with the arm that isn’t in debilitating pain and fists the front of Ryan’s shirt.

“What—what are you doing?” Ryan says, taking Shane’s hand in his own.

“Making sure.” Shane pulls his hand from Ryan’s and lifts his t-shirt to expose Ryan’s belly. Right there, high up on Ryan’s right hip, is the scar. Ryan looks down, and Shane thumbs over it.

“What—”

“Where did you get this anyway?” Shane asks.

“Appendectomy,” Ryan says with a crooked smile.

Shane looks up at Ryan, really looks at him. His eyebrows, his nose, the prickly growth of his beard, the angled sweep of his jawline, the plush of his mouth. Shane wraps his arms around Ryan and just holds him.

The world seems to come back to him, crashing into his senses, overwhelming him. When he opens his eyes, he’s got Ryan against his chest—

There’s music and lights and so many, many mirrors. 

“Smash it,” Shane says. “I’m not losing you again.” 

They stand up, looking around for something to use, but it’s a room full of mirrors—there isn’t _anything_ they can use. 

Ryan kicks the mirror and it cracks. He kicks it again, and again, and Shane helps, kicking the mirror alongside Ryan, until it shatters to the floor, pouring like dulled diamonds all around their feet. Shane jumps back, pulling Ryan with him. 

Ryan’s harsh breathing echoes in his ears and he reaches for Shane, an arm around his waist, and then his whole body against Shane’s. 

“I—I just—” Ryan takes in a deep breath and exhales. “Holy fuck.” 

“Come on, let’s go. I’ll drive until something’s open. You can shower and then we can sleep and—and I don’t know. I don’t know what the protocol is when you’ve seen some shit that’s supposedly not real, and also seems to be gone,” Shane admits, looking around them, finding only their reflections. He doesn’t want to be here anymore, feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise at the fear a hand might reach through and haul them back in. 

“I vote we just leave it,” Ryan says. “If anyone’s stupid enough to come looking, then they’re just gonna have to deal with it themselves.” 

“Not everyone has a Ryan Bergara to save them,” Shane says teasingly, squeezing Ryan’s hip. 

“I did save you, didn’t I? Fuckin’ action hero shit,” Ryan says, prideful. “My cute little damsel in distress.” 

Shane balks. “I am not little.” Despite the fact that Shane figured out what would help get them out of there, he lets Ryan take the win, because really, in a sense, Ryan’s been saving him for a long while. 

“Let’s go,” Shane says, tired enough he could just drop dead among the glass shards, but Ryan heeds his direction, and together, holding hands, they move along to the back door of the fun house. When they step outside, the carnival is in full swing. They must have lost time while inside the mirror, at least a day, though it seemed like a half an hour at most with how quickly everything happened. 

Shane does notice, though, his body doesn’t hurt like it did just moments ago, like he’s shaken the pain away from his shoulder, his headache cured.

“Hey!” 

Shane turns to look and finds the same attendant that had helped them in, the pretty pink haired woman. 

“You dropped this before you went inside,” she says. In her hand is Ryan’s stuffed giraffe, the one with the vampire teeth and cape. 

Ryan reaches out and takes it. “Thanks for saving him.” 

The woman smiles. “You’re welcome!” She leaves them, jogging away. 

With a bad feeling in his stomach, Shane reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. When the screen illuminates, Shane reads the date. 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 31

“I thought we were in Seattle,” Ryan asks him, looking up at him with tired eyes, leaning against Shane. 

“We were definitely in Seattle,” Shane confirms. But my phone is telling me it’s Halloween again. And you know what? Fuck it. Whatever. If a ghost wants to crawl up my ass—” 

Ryan laughs, big and loud and boastful, charming and beautiful, everything Shane had been longing to enjoy again. 

“A ghost would go straight for your ass,” Ryan says, like that makes any sense, but he’s so in love he’ll believe it. He’ll believe anything. 

Like that Smash Mouth song.

“Do you—” Shane clears his throat. “We should have that talk now.” 

“I—” Ryan frowns. “I think that can wait until we get home—” 

“No. I mean. If you really want to, then yeah. We can wait until we get home—” Shane looks around for a sign that’ll point them to the exit, but his vision catches on the Ferris Wheel, brightly colored in the center of the carnival. “But we never got to ride the Ferris Wheel the first time around.” 

Ryan eyes him carefully, like he’s doubting Shane, so he takes Ryan's hand in his own, tangling their fingers. He doesn’t want to leave any room for doubt. Not this time. Not when he so clearly has a second chance to express himself the way he should have from day one. 

“I want to be with you,” Shane says, with certain, exact words, looking Ryan straight in the eyes. There’s life there, light, like the fireworks show at Disneyland. All the lights of the carnival illuminate the features of Ryan’s face, make him glow with the brilliance of every color Shane can name, and the ones he can’t. “Exclusively. In a relationship. Publicized, so there isn’t a single question as to what is going on. That good with you?”

The world around them seems to quiet down, holding its breath for a moment, a pin-prick of a second, and he thinks Ryan might tell him to stop, but then Ryan _smiles_ , gorgeous and brilliant, ducking his head down and then looking up at Shane through his eyelashes. He wheezes a laugh. “That was all I wanted, you know? For you to just tell me what you want.” 

“I know.” Shane agrees, nodding. “I know and I’m sorry it took me this long. I should have—” 

“Hindsight, you know?” Ryan says softly. “You’re telling me now and—and after everything I put you through—” 

“It _wasn’t_ you. I want you to know—” Shane sighs. “He looked like you and sounded like you, but he wasn’t you at all. And I know that, okay?” 

Shane can see Ryan’s jaw clench; he reaches out a hand and passes the pad of his thumb over the corner, rubbing until Ryan releases the tension, wilting. “How can you do that? How can you separate us?” 

Shane shrugs. “I just—I just can.” 

“That’s not a good enough answer, Shane. Every day I could see you and hear you. It was always muffled, but whenever you passed by a mirror, I could look at you. And all I wanted to do was touch you, because I _missed_ you.” 

Inside Shane’s chest, his heart stirs into a restless, riotous rhythm, heat flushing and seeping into each of his limbs. He tightens his fingers around Ryan’s, watching as the hope in his face contorts into pinched anger. 

“I kept thinking I would be stuck in there, and you would only get the worst parts of me, that—that my reflection would make you—that you wouldn’t like me anymore, because I was so horrible. I— _he_ said things to you. Things _I_ don’t think about you, okay? Sometimes I get mad at you, but I would never—”

“ _Ryan_. I _know_.” 

“How can you look at me?” he mutters, his tone frustrated and exasperated. Shane disentangles his hand from Ryan’s and closes the space between them, gathering Ryan in by the hips. He looks down at Ryan 

“Because I love you,” Shane says easily. Like it’s the only thing in the whole world he’s certain of. Grass is green, the sky is blue, and Shane loves Ryan with every part of his being. 

Ryan’s arms come around Shane’s neck, still holding the silly stuffed toy. When Ryan blinks, it’s slow and sweet, showcasing his eyelashes, his big, wide eyes shining so, so bright underneath the garish light of the carnival. “The idea that our anniversary is going to be on Halloween specifically fits our brand,” Ryan says laughing. 

“It does,” Shane says with a grin. 

“My mom’s gonna shit herself. She’s been calling you my boyfriend for three years.” 

“Jesus, Ryan,” Shane says. Ryan pulls away, linking their hands again, and Shane follows when Ryan starts walking. “Where are we going?”

“I love you, and I want to kiss you at the top of the Ferris Wheel.” 

Shane laughs, untangling their hands to sling an arm over Ryan’s shoulder. “Anything you want.” 

“Just you, baby boo.” 

“I’m gonna let that slide because we’re having a moment. But _please_ don't ever call me that again.” 

“I’m gonna say it when I ride you later,” Ryan teases, grinning. 

Shane can’t help his own big smile, face-splitting, cheeks aching. “I guess I won’t leave you up there for five hours, then.” 

It’s a miracle there isn’t a line, but Shane feels like maybe it’s the magic of it all, whatever this specific night is, special and in limbo. Shane continues to suspend his disbelief, but only a little, because really, probably, they just have a little bit of probable luck on their side. 

Ryan lets Shane climb into the cart first, following in after, and the attendant shuts the tiny door. There isn’t much room for Shane’s legs, but Ryan puts a hand on Shane’s thigh, an innocent touch that makes him forget about the momentary discomfort. 

The sound of the carnival falls away as they make their way to the top. There are stars in the sky, not as brilliant as Shane knows they can be, struggling to glow. 

“How are you feeling?” Shane asks quietly. “Okay?”

“No,” Ryan says honestly. “But I will be eventually. You?”

“I think so,” Shane says, turning into Ryan. He reaches his hand and cups Ryan’s jaw, his other hand doing the same, so he cradles Ryan’s face in his palms. He leans their foreheads together, holding Ryan’s face in his hands. 

“Shane…”

“I missed you, Ryan. So, so incredibly.” 

“Right now, I want to forget about everything except you,” Ryan whispers. He leans in and catches Shane’s mouth, claims it, and him, and it feels right, exactly like that night outside the bar, where Ryan kissed Shane with everything he wanted to say, with everything he wanted to do. 

Nothing has never been normal with them, and it feels new, a second start, with the soft sigh of Ryan saying his name and kissing him again, arms looped around his neck. They shake the rest of the world, with only stars to witness the way they fall into each other. They kiss and kiss and kiss, until the cart floats all the way to the bottom, and the sounds of the world around them come back full force. 

Shane thinks, what does a person do when they’ve seen the things they’ve seen? 

See, the thing about horror movies is they never tell you what happens after, not unless there’s a sequel, and usually, the same shit happens in the sequel, so there really isn’t much of a ending.

Shane’s not stupid enough to think this won’t affect them. Time may have somehow mysteriously reset after smashing the mirror, but he knows they’re wounded from what happened to them, and it’s going to take some time for them to heal properly. 

As they climb off, Ryan slips his fingers into the spaces between Shane’s. They’re so frail, but they’re holding onto each other, so for right now, they make their own ending. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i'm [here!](https://uneventfulhouses.tumblr.com/)


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